Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In the course of enforcing the immigration laws, petitioner Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) enters employers’ worksites to determine whether any illegal aliens *212may be present as employees. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the “factory surveys” involved in this case amounted to a seizure of the entire work forces, and further held that the INS could not question individual employees during any of these surveys unless its agents had a reasonable suspicion that the employee to be questioned was an illegal alien. International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, AFL-CIO v. Sureck, 681 F. 2d 624 (1982). We conclude that these factory surveys did not result in the seizure of the entire work forces, and that the individual questioning of the respondents in this case by INS agents concerning their citizenship did not amount to a detention or seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Acting pursuant to two warrants, in January and September 1977, the INS conducted a survey of the work force at Southern California Davis Pleating Co. (Davis Pleating) in search of illegal aliens. The warrants were issued on a showing of probable cause by the INS that numerous illegal aliens were employed at Davis Pleating, although neither of the search warrants identified any particular illegal aliens by name. A third factory survey was conducted with the employer’s consent in October 1977, at Mr. Pleat, another garment factory.

At the beginning of the surveys several agents positioned themselves near the buildings’ exits, while other agents dispersed throughout the factory to question most, but not all, employees at their work stations. The agents displayed badges, carried walkie-talkies, and were armed, although at no point during any of the surveys was a weapon ever drawn. Moving systematically through the factory, the agents approached employees and, after identifying themselves, asked them from one to three questions relating to their citizenship. If the employee gave a credible reply that he was a United States citizen, the questioning ended, and the agent moved on to another employee. If the employee gave an unsatisfac*213tory response or admitted that he was an alien, the employee was asked to produce his immigration papers. During the survey, employees continued with their work and were free to walk around within the factory.

Respondents are four employees questioned in one of the three surveys.1 In 1978 respondents and their union representative, the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, filed two actions, later consolidated, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California challenging the constitutionality of INS factory surveys and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Respondents argued that the factory surveys violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizures and the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

The District Court denied class certification and dismissed the union from the action for lack of standing, App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a-60a. In a series of cross-motions for partial summary judgment, the District Court ruled that respondents had no reasonable expectation of privacy in their workplaces which conferred standing on them to challenge entry by the INS pursuant to a warrant or owner’s consent. Id., at 49a-52a, 53a-55a, 56a-57a. In its final ruling the District Court addressed respondents’ request for injunctive relief directed at preventing the INS from questioning them personally during any future surveys. The District Court, with no material facts in dispute, found that each of the four respondents was asked a question or questions by an INS agent during one of the factory surveys. Id., at 46a. Reasoning from this Court’s decision in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), that law enforcement officers may ask questions of anyone, the *214District Court ruled that none of the respondents had been detained under the Fourth Amendment during the factory surveys, either when they were questioned or otherwise. App. to Pet. for Cert. 47a. Accordingly, it granted summary judgment in favor of the INS.2

The Court of Appeals reversed. Applying the standard first enunciated by a Member of this Court in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.), the Court of Appeals concluded that the entire work forces were seized for the duration of each survey, which lasted from one to two hours, because the stationing of agents at the doors to the buildings meant that “a reasonable worker ‘would have believed that he was not free to leave.’” 681 F. 2d, at 634 (quoting United States v. Anderson, 663 F. 2d 934, 939 (CA9 1981)). Although the Court of Appeals conceded that the INS had statutory authority to question any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or remain in the United States, see 66 Stat. 233, 8 U. S. C. § 1357(a)(1), it further held that under the Fourth Amendment individual employees could be questioned only on the basis of a reasonable suspicion that a particular employee being questioned was an alien illegally in the country. 681 F. 2d, at 639-645. A reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe that a number of illegal aliens were working at a particular factory site was insufficient to justify questioning any individual employee. Id., at 643. Consequently, it also held that the individual questioning of respondents violated the Fourth Amendment because there had been no such reasonable suspicion or probable cause as to any of them.3

*215We granted certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals, 461 U. S. 904 (1983), because it has serious implications for the enforcement of the immigration laws and presents a conflict with the decision reached by the Third Circuit in Babula v. INS, 665 F. 2d 293 (1981).

The Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all contact between the police and citizens, but is designed “to prevent arbitrary and oppressive interference by enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security of individuals.” United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 554 (1976). Given the diversity of encounters between police officers and citizens, however, the Court has been cautious in defining the limits imposed by the Fourth Amendment on encounters between the police and citizens. As we have noted elsewhere: “Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a ‘seizure’ has occurred.” Terry v. Ohio, supra, at 19, n. 16. While applying such a test is relatively straightforward in a situation resembling a traditional arrest, see Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 212-216 (1979), the protection against unreasonable seizures also extends to “seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest.” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878 (1975). What has evolved from our cases is a determination that an initially consensual encounter between a police officer and a citizen can be transformed into a seizure or detention within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, “if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” Mendenhall, supra, at 554 (footnote omitted); see Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 502 (1983) (plurality opinion).

*216Although we have yet to rule directly on whether mere questioning of an individual by a police official, without more, can amount to a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, our recent decision in Royer, supra, plainly implies that interrogation relating to one’s identity or a request for identification by the police does not, by itself, constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure. In Royer, when Drug Enforcement Administration agents found that the respondent matched a drug courier profile, the agents approached the defendant and asked him for his airplane ticket and driver’s license, which the agents then examined. A majority of the Court believed that the request and examination of the documents were "permissible in themselves.” Id., at 501 (plurality opinion); see id., at 523, n. 3 (opinion of Rehnquist, J.). In contrast, a much different situation prevailed in Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47 (1979), when two policemen physically detained the defendant to determine his identity, after the defendant refused the officers’ request to identify himself. The Court held that absent some reasonable suspicion of misconduct, the detention of the defendant to determine his identity violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable seizure. Id., at 52.

What is apparent from Royer and Brown is that police questioning, by itself, is unlikely to result in a Fourth Amendment violation. While most citizens will respond to a police request, the fact that people do so, and do so without being told they are free not to respond, hardly eliminates the consensual nature of the response. Cf. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 231-234 (1973). Unless the circumstances of the encounter are so intimidating as to demonstrate that a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave if he had not responded, one cannot say that the questioning resulted in a detention under the Fourth Amendment. But if the person refuses to answer and the police take additional steps — such as those taken in Brown— to obtain an answer, then the Fourth Amendment imposes *217some minimal level of objective justification to validate the detention or seizure. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S., at 554; see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 21.

The Court of Appeals held that “the manner in which the factory surveys were conducted in this case constituted a seizure of the workforce” under the Fourth Amendment. 681 F. 2d, at 634. While the element of surprise and the systematic questioning of individual workers by several INS agents contributed to the court’s holding, the pivotal factor in its decision was the stationing of INS agents near the exits of the factory buildings. According to the Court of Appeals, the stationing of agents near the doors meant that “departures were not to be contemplated,” and thus, workers were “not free to leave.” Ibid. In support of the decision below, respondents argue that the INS created an intimidating psychological environment when it intruded unexpectedly into the workplace with such a show of officers.4 Besides the stationing of agents near the exits, respondents add that the length of the survey and the failure to inform workers they were free to leave resulted in a Fourth Amendment seizure of the entire work force.5

*218We reject the claim that the entire work forces of the two factories were seized for the duration of the surveys when the INS placed agents near the exits of the factory sites. Ordinarily, when people are at work their freedom to move about has been meaningfully restricted, not by the actions of law enforcement officials, but by the workers’ voluntary obligations to their employers. The record indicates that when these surveys were initiated, the employees were about their ordinary business, operating machinery and performing other job assignments. While the surveys did cause some disruption, including the efforts of some workers to hide, the record also indicates that workers were not prevented by the agents from moving about the factories.

Respondents argue, however, that the stationing of agents near the factory doors showed the INS’s intent to prevent people from leaving. But there is nothing in the record indicating that this is what the agents at the doors actually did. The obvious purpose of the agents’ presence at the factory doors was to insure that all persons in the factories were questioned. The record indicates that the INS agents’ conduct in this case consisted simply of questioning employees and arresting those they had probable cause to believe were unlawfully present in the factory. This conduct should have given respondents no reason to believe that they would be detained if they gave truthful answers to the questions put to them or if they simply refused to answer. If mere questioning does not constitute a seizure when it occurs inside the factory, it is no more a seizure when it occurs at the exits.6

*219A similar conclusion holds true for all other citizens or aliens lawfully present inside the factory buildings during the surveys. The presence of agents by the exits posed no reasonable threat of detention to these workers while they walked throughout the factories on job assignments. Likewise, the mere possibility that they would be questioned if they sought to leave the buildings should not have resulted in any reasonable apprehension by any of them that they would be seized or detained in any meaningful way. Since most workers could have had no reasonable fear that they would be detained upon leaving, we conclude that the work forces as a whole were not seized.7

The Court of Appeals also held that “detentive questioning” of individuals could be conducted only if INS agents could articulate “objective facts providing investigators with a reasonable suspicion that each questioned person, so detained, is an alien illegally in this country.” 681 F. 2d, at 638. Under our analysis, however, since there was no seizure of the work forces by virtue of the method of conducting the factory surveys, the only way the issue of individual questioning could be presented would be if one of the named respondents had in fact been seized or detained. Reviewing the deposition testimony of respondents, we conclude that none were.

The questioning of each respondent by INS agents seems to have been nothing more than a brief encounter. None of the three Davis Pleating employees were questioned during the January survey. During the September survey at Davis Pleating, respondent Delgado was discussing the survey with another employee when two INS agents approached him and asked him where he was from and from what city. When Delgado informed them that he came from Mayaguez, Puerto *220Rico, the agent made an innocuous observation to his partner and left. App. 94. Respondent Correa's experience in the September survey was similar. Walking from one part of the factory to another, Correa was stopped by an INS agent and asked where she was bom. When she replied “Huntington Park, [California],” the agent walked away and Correa continued about her business. Id., at 115. Respondent Labonte, the third Davis Pleating employee, was tapped on the shoulder and asked in Spanish, “Where are your papers?” Id., at 138. Labonte responded that she had her papers and without any further request from the INS agents, showed the papers to the agents, who then left. Finally, respondent Miramontes, the sole Mr. Pleat employee involved in this case, encountered an agent en route from an office to her worksite. Questioned concerning her citizenship, Miramon-tes replied that she was a resident alien, and on the agent’s request, produced her work permit. The agent then left. Id., at 120-121.

Respondents argue that the manner in which the surveys were conducted and the attendant disruption caused by the surveys created a psychological environment which made them reasonably afraid they were not free to leave. Consequently, when respondents were approached by INS agents and questioned concerning their citizenship and right to work, they were effectively detained under the Fourth Amendment, since they reasonably feared that refusing to answer would have resulted in their arrest. But it was obvious from the beginning of the surveys that the INS agents were only questioning people. Persons such as respondents who simply went about their business in the workplace were not detained in any way; nothing more occurred than that a question was put to them. While persons who attempted to flee or evade the agents may eventually have been detained for questioning, see id., at 50, 81-84, 91-93, respondents did not do so and were not in fact detained. The manner in which respondents were questioned, given its obvious purpose, could hardly result in a reasonable fear that respond*221ents were not free to continue working or to move about the factory. Respondents may only litigate what happened to them, and our review of their description of the encounters with the INS agents satisfies us that the encounters were classic consensual encounters rather than Fourth Amendment seizures. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980).

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

Justice Stevens,

concurring.

A trial has not yet been held in this case. The District Court entered summary judgment against respondents, and the Court of Appeals, in reversing, did not remand the case for trial but rather directed the District Court to enter summary judgment for respondents and a permanent injunction against petitioners. As the case comes to us, therefore, we must construe the record most favorably to petitioners, and resolve all issues of fact in their favor. Because I agree that this record is insufficient to establish that there is no genuine issue of fact on the question whether any of the respondents could have reasonably believed that he or she had been detained in some meaningful way, I j oin the opinion of the Court.

Justice Powell,

concurring in the result.

While the Court’s opinion is persuasive, I find the question of whether the factory surveys conducted in this case resulted in any Fourth Amendment “seizures” to be a close one. The question turns on a difficult characterization of fact and law: whether a reasonable person in respondents’ position would have believed he was free to refuse to answer the questions put to him by INS officers and leave the factory. I believe that the Court need not decide the question, however, because it is clear that any “seizure” that may have taken place was permissible under the reasoning of our decision in United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543 (1976).

*222In that case, we held that stopping automobiles for brief questioning at permanent traffic checkpoints away from the Mexican border is consistent with the Fourth Amendment and need not be authorized by a warrant.1 We assumed that the stops constituted “seizures” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, see id., at 546, n. 1, 556, but upheld them as reasonable. As in prior cases involving the apprehension of aliens illegally in the United States, we weighed the public interest in the practice at issue against the Fourth Amendment interest of the individual. See id., at 555. Noting the importance of routine checkpoint stops to controlling the flow of illegal aliens into the interior of the country, we found that the Government had a substantial interest in the practice. On the other hand, the intrusion on individual motorists was minimal: the stops were brief, usually involving only a question or two and possibly the production of documents. Moreover, they were public and regularized law enforcement activities vesting limited discretion in officers in the field. Weighing these considerations, we held that the stops and questioning at issue, as well as referrals to a slightly longer secondary inspection, might be made “in the absence of any individualized suspicion” that a particular car contained illegal aliens, id., at 562.

This case is similar. The Government’s interest in using factory surveys is as great if not greater. According to an affidavit by the INS’s Assistant District Director in Los An-geles contained in the record in this case, the surveys account for one-half to three-quarters of the illegal aliens identified and arrested away from the border every day in the Los Angeles District. App. 47.2 In that District alone, over *22320,000 illegal aliens were arrested in the course of factory surveys in one year. Id., at 44. The surveys in this case resulted in the arrest of between 20% and 50% of the employees at each of the factories.3

We have noted before the dimensions of the immigration problem in this country. E. g., United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878-879 (1975); Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 551-553. Recent estimates of the number of illegal aliens in this country range between 2 and 12 million, although the consensus appears to be that the number at any one time is between 3 and 6 million.4 One of the main reasons they come — perhaps the main reason — is to seek employment. See App. 43; Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 551; Select Committee, at 25,38. Factory surveys strike directly at this cause, enabling the INS with relatively few agents to diminish the incentive for the dangerous passage across the border and to apprehend large numbers of those who come. Clearly, the Government interest in this enforcement technique is enormous.5

*224The intrusion into the Fourth Amendment interests of the employees, on the other hand, is about the same as it was in Martinez-Fuerte. The objective intrusion is actually less: there, cars often were stopped for up to five minutes, while here employees could continue their work as the survey progressed. They were diverted briefly to answer a few questions or to display their registration cards. It is true that the initial entry into the plant in a factory survey is a surprise to the workers, but the obviously authorized character of the operation, the clear purpose of seeking illegal aliens, and the systematic and public nature of the survey serve to minimize any concern or fright on the part of lawful employees. Moreover, the employees’ expectation of privacy in the plant setting here, like that in an automobile, certainly is far less than the traditional expectation of privacy in one’s residence. Therefore, for the same reasons that we upheld the checkpoint stops in Martinez-Fuerte without any individualized suspicion, I would find the factory surveys here to be reasonable.6

*225Justice Brennan,

with whom Justice Marshall joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

As part of its ongoing efforts to enforce the immigration laws, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) conducts “surveys” of those workplaces that it has reason to believe employ large numbers of undocumented aliens who may be subject to deportation. This case presents the question whether the INS’s method of carrying out these “factory surveys”1 violates the rights of the affected factory workers to be secure against unreasonable seizures of one’s person as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Answering that question, the Court today holds, first, that the INS surveys involved here did not result in the seizure of the entire factory work force for the complete duration of the surveys, ante, at 218-219, and, second, that the individual questioning of respondents by INS agents concerning their citizenship did not constitute seizures within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, ante, at 219-221. Although I generally agree with the Court’s first conclusion,21 am convinced that a fair application of our prior decisions to the facts of this case *226compels the conclusion that respondents were unreasonably seized by INS agents in the course of these factory surveys.

At first blush, the Court’s opinion appears unremarkable. But what is striking about today’s decision is its studied air of unreality. Indeed, it is only through a considerable feat of legerdemain that the Court is able to arrive at the conclusion that the respondents were not seized. The success of the Court’s sleight of hand turns on the proposition that the interrogations of respondents by the INS were merely brief, “consensual encounters,” ante, at 221, that posed no threat to respondents’ personal security and freedom. The record, however, tells a far different story.

I — I

Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, see ante, at 216, we have repeatedly considered whether and, if so, under what circumstances questioning of an individual by law enforcement officers may amount to a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968); Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969); Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972); Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47 (1979); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980); Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983). Of course, as these decisions recognize, the question does not admit of any simple answer. The difficulty springs from the inherent tension between our commitment to safeguarding the precious, and all too fragile, right to go about one’s business free from unwarranted government interference, and our recognition that the police must be allowed some latitude in gathering information from those individuals who are willing to cooperate. Given these difficulties, it is perhaps understandable that our efforts to strike an appropriate balance have not produced uniform results. Nevertheless, the outline of what appears to be the appropriate inquiry has been traced over the years with some clarity.

*227The Court launched its examination of this issue in Terry v. Ohio, supra, by explaining that “the Fourth Amendment governs ‘seizures’ of the person which do not eventuate in a trip to the station house and prosecution for crime — ‘arrests’ in traditional terminology. It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.” Id., at 16 (emphasis added). Such a seizure, the Court noted, may be evidenced by either “physical force or show of authority” indicating that the individual’s liberty has been restrained. Id., at 19, n. 16. The essential teaching of the Court’s decision in Terry — that an individual’s right to personal security and freedom must be respected even in encounters with the police that fall short of full arrest — has been consistently reaffirmed. In Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S., at 726-727, for example, the Court confirmed that investigatory detentions implicate the protections of the Fourth Amendment and further explained that “while the police have the right to request citizens to answer voluntarily questions concerning unsolved crimes they have no right to compel them to answer.” Id., at 727, n. 6. Similarly, in Brown v. Texas, supra, we overturned a conviction for refusing to stop and identify oneself to police, because, in making the stop, the police lacked any “reasonable suspicion, based on objective facts, that the individual [was] involved in criminal activity.” Id., at 51. The animating principle underlying this unanimous decision was that the Fourth Amendment protects an individual’s personal security and privacy from unreasonable interference by the police, even when that interference amounts to no more than a brief stop and questioning concerning one’s identity.

Although it was joined at the time by only one other Member of this Court, Part II-A of Justice Stewart’s opinion in United States v. Mendenhall, supra, offered a helpful, preliminary distillation of the lessons of these cases. Noting *228first that “as long as the person to whom questions are put remains free to disregard the questions and walk away, there has been no intrusion upon that person’s liberty or privacy,” Justice Stewart explained that “a person has been ‘seized’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” Id., at 554. The opinion also suggested that such circumstances might include “the threatening presence of several officers, the display of a weapon by an officer, some physical touching of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice indicating that compliance with the officer’s request might be compelled.” Ibid.

A majority of the Court has since adopted that formula as the appropriate standard for determining when inquiries made by the police cross the boundary separating merely consensual encounters from forcible stops to investigate a suspected crime. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S., at 502, (plurality opinion); id., at 511-512 (Brennan, J., concurring in result); id., at 514 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). This rule properly looks not to the subjective impressions of the person questioned but rather to the objective characteristics of the encounter which may suggest whether or not a reasonable person would believe that he remained free during the course of the questioning to disregard the questions and walk away. See 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §9.2, p. 52 (1978). The governing principles that should guide us in this difficult area were summarized in the Royer plurality opinion:

“[L]aw enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions. Nor would the fact that the officer identifies himself as a police officer, without more, con*229vert the encounter into a seizure requiring some level of objective justification. The person approached, however, need not answer any question put to him; indeed, he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way. He may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so; and his refusal to listen or answer does not, without more, furnish those grounds.” 460 U. S., at 497-498 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).

Applying these principles to the facts of this case, I have no difficulty concluding that respondents were seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when they were accosted by the INS agents and questioned concerning their right to remain in the United States. Although none of the respondents was physically restrained by the INS agents during the questioning, it is nonetheless plain beyond cavil that the manner in which the INS conducted these surveys demonstrated a “show of authority” of sufficient size and force to overbear the will of any reasonable person. Faced with such tactics, a reasonable person could not help but feel compelled to stop and provide answers to the INS agents’ questions. The Court’s efforts to avoid this conclusion are rooted more in fantasy than in the record of this case. The Court goes astray, in my view, chiefly because it insists upon considering each interrogation in isolation as if respondents had been questioned by the INS in a setting similar to an encounter between a single police officer and a lone passerby that might occur on a street corner. Obviously, once the Court begins with such an unrealistic view of the facts, it is only a short step to the equally fanciful conclusion that respondents acted voluntarily when they stopped and answered the agents’ questions.

The surrounding circumstances in this case are far different from an isolated encounter between the police and a passerby on the street. Each of the respondents testified at length about the widespread disturbance among the workers *230that was sparked by the INS surveys and the intimidating atmosphere created by the INS’s investigative tactics. First, as the respondents explained, the surveys were carried out by surprise by relatively large numbers of agents, generally from 15 to 25, who moved systematically through the rows of workers who were seated at their work stations. See App. 77-78, 81-85, 102-103, 122-123. Second, as the INS agents discovered persons whom they suspected of being illegal aliens, they would handcuff these persons and lead them away to waiting vans outside the factory. See id., at 88, 140-141. Third, all of the factory exits were conspicuously guarded by INS agents, stationed there to prevent anyone from leaving while the survey was being conducted. See id., at 48, 82, 125-126, 144-145, 158. Finally, as the INS agents moved through the rows of workers, they would show their badges and direct pointed questions at the workers. In light of these circumstances, it is simply fantastic to conclude that a reasonable person could ignore all that was occurring throughout the factory and, when the INS agents reached him, have the temerity to believe that he was at liberty to refuse to answer their questions and walk away.

Indeed, the experiences recounted by respondents clearly demonstrate that they did not feel free either to ignore the INS agents or to refuse to answer the questions posed to them. For example, respondent Delgado, a naturalized American citizen, explained that he was standing near his work station when two INS agents approached him, identified themselves as immigration officers, showed him their badges, and asked him to state where he was born. Id., at 95. Delgado, of course, had seen all that was going on around him up to that point and naturally he responded. As a final reminder of who controlled the situation, one INS agent remarked as they were leaving Delgado that they would be coming back to check him out again because he spoke English too well. Id., at 94. Respondent Miramontes described her encounter with the INS in similar terms: “He *231told me he was from Immigration, so when I showed him the [work permit] papers I saw his badge. If I hadn’t [seen his badge], I wouldn’t have shown them to him.” Id., at 121 (emphasis added). She further testified that she was frightened during this interview because “normally you get nervous when you see everybody is scared, everybody is nervous.” Ibid. Respondent Labontes testified that while she was sitting at her machine an immigration officer came up to her from behind, tapped her on the left shoulder and asked “Where are your papers?” Explaining her response to this demand, she testified: “I turned, and at the same time I didn’t wish to identify myself. When I saw [the INS agents], I said, ‘Yes, yes, I have my papers.’” Id., at 138 (emphasis added).

In sum, it is clear from this testimony that respondents felt constrained to answer the questions posed by the INS agents, even though they did not wish to do so. That such a feeling of constraint was reasonable should be beyond question in light of the surrounding circumstances. Indeed, the respondents’ testimony paints a frightening picture of people subjected to wholesale interrogation under conditions designed not to respect personal security and privacy, but rather to elicit prompt answers from completely intimidated workers. Nothing could be clearer than that these tactics amounted to seizures of respondents under the Fourth Amendment.3

*232H-1

The Court’s eagerness to conclude that these interrogations did not represent seizures is to some extent understandable, of course, because such a conclusion permits the Court to avoid the imposing task of justifying these seizures on the basis of reasonable, objective criteria as required by the Fourth Amendment.

The reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment applies to all seizures of the person, including those that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest. But because the intrusion upon an individual’s personal security and privacy is limited in cases of this sort, we have explained that brief detentions may be justified on “facts that do not amount to the probable cause required for an arrest. ” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 880 (1975). Nevertheless, our prior decisions also make clear that investigatory stops of the kind at issue here “must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity.” United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417 (1981). As the Court stated in Terry, the “demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” 392 U. S., at 21, n. 18. Repeatedly, we have insisted that police may not detain and interrogate an individual unless they have reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person is involved in some unlawful activity. In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, supra, for instance, the Court held that “[Border Patrol] officers on roving patrol may stop vehicles only if they are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion that the vehicles contain aliens who may be illegally in the country.” Id., at 884. See also Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 699-700 (1981); Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U. S. 85, 92-93 (1979); Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S., at 51 — 52; Dela *233 ware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 661 (1979); Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S., at 146-149; Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S., at 726-728; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 16-19. This requirement of particularized suspicion provides the chief protection of lawful citizens against unwarranted governmental interference with their personal security and privacy.

In this case, the individual seizures of respondents by the INS agents clearly were neither “based on specific, objective facts indicating that society’s legitimate interests require[d] the seizure,” nor “carried out pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of individual officers.” Brown v. Texas, supra, at 51. It is undisputed that the vast majority of the undocumented aliens discovered in the surveyed factories had illegally immigrated from Mexico. Nevertheless, the INS agents involved in this case apparently were instructed, in the words of the INS Assistant District Director in charge of the operations, to interrogate “virtually all persons employed by a company.” App. 49. See also id., at 77, 85-86, 151-152, 155. Consequently, all workers, irrespective of whether they were American citizens, permanent resident aliens, or deportable aliens, were subjected to questioning by INS agents concerning their right to remain in the country. By their own admission, the INS agents did not selectively question persons in these surveys on the basis of any reasonable suspicion that the persons were illegal aliens. See id., at 55, 155. That the INS policy is so indiscriminate should not be surprising, however, since many of the employees in the surveyed factories who are lawful residents of the United States may have been bom in Mexico, have a Latin appearance, or speak Spanish while at work. See id., at 57, 73. What this means, of course, is that the many lawful workers who constitute the clear majority at the surveyed workplaces are subjected to surprise questioning under intimidating circumstances by INS agents who have no reasonable basis for suspecting that they have *234done anything wrong. To say that such an indiscriminate policy of mass interrogation is constitutional makes a mockery of the words of the Fourth Amendment.

Furthermore, even if the INS agents had pursued a firm policy of stopping and interrogating only those persons whom they reasonably suspected of being aliens, they would still have failed, given the particular circumstances of this case, to safeguard adequately the rights secured by the Fourth Amendment. The first and in my view insurmountable problem with such a policy is that, viewed realistically, it poses such grave problems of execution that in practice it affords virtually no protection to lawful American citizens working in these factories. This is so because, as the Court recognized in Brignoni-Ponce, supra, at 886, there is no reliable way to distinguish with a reasonable degree of accuracy between native-born and naturalized citizens of Mexican ancestry on the one hand, and aliens of Mexican ancestry on the other.4 See also Developments, Immigration Policy and the Rights of Aliens, 96 Harv. L. Rev. 1286, 1374-1375 (1983). Indeed, the record in this case clearly demonstrates this danger, since respondents Correa and Delgado, although both American citizens, were subjected to questioning during the INS surveys.

*235Moreover, the mere fact that a person is believed to be an alien provides no immediate grounds for suspecting any illegal activity. Congress, of course, possesses broad power to regulate the admission and exclusion of aliens, see Kliendeinst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 766 (1972); Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U. S. 787, 792 (1977), and resident aliens surely may be required to register with the INS and to carry proper identification, see 8 U. S. C. §§ 1302, 1304(e). Nonetheless, as we held in Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 883-884, when the Executive Branch seeks to enforce such congressional policies, it may not employ enforcement techniques that threaten the constitutional rights of American citizens. In contexts such as these factory surveys, where it is virtually impossible to distinguish fairly between citizens and aliens, the threat to vital civil rights of American citizens would soon become intolerable if we simply permitted the INS to question persons solely on account of suspected alienage. Cf. id., at 884-886. Therefore, in order to protect both American citizens and lawful resident aliens, who are also protected by the Fourth Amendment, see Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266, 273 (1973), the INS must tailor its enforcement efforts to focus only on those workers who are reasonably suspected of being illegal aliens.5

*236Relying upon United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543 (1976), however, Justice Powell would hold that the interrogation of respondents represented a “reasonable” seizure under the Fourth Amendment, even though the INS agents lacked any particularized suspicion of illegal alienage to support the questioning, ante, at 224. In my view, reliance on that decision is misplaced. In Martinez-Fuerte, the Court held that when the intrusion upon protected privacy interests is extremely limited, the INS, in order to serve the pressing governmental interest in immigration enforcement, may briefly detain travelers at fixed checkpoints for questioning solely on the basis of “apparent Mexican ancestry.” 428 U. S., at 563. In so holding, the Court was careful to distinguish its earlier decision in Brignoni-Ponce, supra, which held that Border Patrol agents conducting roving patrols may not stop and question motorists solely on the basis of apparent Mexican ancestry, and may instead make such stops only when their observations lead them “reasonably to suspect that a particular vehicle may contain aliens who are illegally in the country.” Id., at 881. The “crucial distinction” between the roving patrols and the fixed checkpoints, as the Court later observed in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S., at 656, was “the lesser intrusion upon the motorist’s Fourth Amendment interests” caused by the checkpoint operations. Thus, as the Court explained in Martinez-Fuerte: “This objective intrusion — the stop itself, the questioning, and the visual inspection — also existed in roving-patrol stops. But we view checkpoint stops in a different light because the subjective intrusion — the generating of concern or even fright on the part of lawful travelers — is appreciably less in the case of a checkpoint stop.” 428 U. S., at 558.6

*237The limited departure from Terry’s, general requirement of particularized suspicion permitted in Martinez-Fuerte turned, therefore, largely on the fact that the intrusion upon motorists resulting from the checkpoint operations was extremely modest. In this case, by contrast, there are no equivalent guarantees that the privacy of lawful workers will not be substantially invaded by the factory surveys or that the workers will not be frightened by the INS tactics. Indeed, the opposite is true. First, unlike the fixed checkpoints that were upheld in Martinez-Fuerte in part because their location was known to motorists in advance, the INS factory surveys are sprung upon unsuspecting workers completely by surprise. Respondents testified that the sudden arrival of large numbers of INS agents created widespread fear and anxiety among most workers. See App. 89, 107, 116, 120-121, 129-130. Respondent Miramontes, for instance, explained that she was afraid during the surveys “[b]ecause if I leave and they think I don’t have no papers and they shoot me or something. They see me leaving and they think I’m guilty.” Id., at 127.7 In Martinez-Fuerte, there was absolutely no evidence of widespread fear and anxiety similar to that adduced in this case.

Second, the degree of unfettered discretionary judgment exercised by the individual INS agents during the factory surveys is considerably greater than in the fixed checkpoint operations. The power of individual INS agents to decide who they will stop and question and who they will pass over contributes significantly to the feeling of uncertainty and *238anxiety of the workers. See App. 86, 90, 129-130. Unlike the fixed checkpoint operation, there can be no reliable sense among the affected workers that the survey will be conducted in an orderly and predictable manner. Third, although the workplace obviously is not as private as the home, it is at the same time not without an element of privacy that is greater than in an automobile. All motorists expect that while on the highway they are subject to general police surveillance as part of the regular and expectable enforcement of traffic laws. For the average employee, however, the workplace encloses a small, recognizable community that is a locus of friendships, gossip, common effort, and shared experience. While at work, therefore, the average employee will not have the same sense of anonymity that is felt when one is driving on the public highways; instead, an employee will be known by co-workers and will recognize other employees as his or her fellows. This experience, common enough among all who work, forms the basis for a legitimate, albeit modest, expectation of privacy that cannot be indiscriminately invaded by government agents. See Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U. S. 364, 368-369 (1968) (employee has reasonable expectation of privacy in office space shared with other workers). The mere fact that the employer has consented to the entry of the INS onto his property does not mean that the workers’ expectation of privacy evaporates.

Finally, there is no historical precedent for these kinds of surveys that would make them expectable or predictable. As the Court noted in Martinez-Fuerte, supra, at 560-561, n. 14, road checkpoints are supported to some extent by a long history of acceptance that diminishes substantially the concern and fear that such practices would elicit in the average motorist. But factory surveys of the kind conducted by the INS are wholly unprecedented, and their novelty can therefore be expected to engender a high degree of resentment and anxiety. In sum, although the governmental interest is obviously as substantial here as it was in Martinez- *239 Fuerte, the degree of intrusion upon the privacy rights of lawful workers is significantly greater. Accordingly, the quantum of suspicion required to justify such an intrusion must be correspondingly greater.

In my view, therefore, the only acceptable alternatives that would adequately safeguard Fourth Amendment values in this context are for the INS either (a) to adopt a firm policy of stopping and questioning only those workers who are reasonably suspected of being illegal aliens, or (b) to develop a factory survey program that is predictably and reliably less intrusive than the current scheme under review. The first alternative would satisfy the requirement of particularized suspicion enunciated in Terry — a principle that must control here because the specific conditions that permitted exception to that requirement in Martinez-Fuerte are simply not present. The second alternative would seek to redesign the factory survey techniques used by the INS in order to bring them more closely into line with the characteristics found in Martinez-Fuerte. Such a scheme might require the INS, before conducting a survey of all workers in a particular plant, to secure an administrative warrant based upon a showing that reasonable grounds exist for believing that a substantial number of workers employed at the factory are undocumented aliens subject to deportation, and that there are no practical alternatives to conducting such a survey. Cf. Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523 (1967). In addition, the surveys could be further tailored in duration and manner so as to be substantially less intrusive.

HH HH hH

No one doubts that the presence of large numbers of undocumented aliens in this country creates law enforcement problems of titanic proportions for the INS. Nor does anyone question that this agency must be afforded considerable latitude in meeting its delegated enforcement responsibilities. I am afraid, however, that the Court has become so *240mesmerized by the magnitude of the problem that it has too easily allowed Fourth Amendment freedoms to be sacrificed. Before we discard all efforts to respect the commands of the Fourth Amendment in this troubling area, however, it is worth remembering that the difficulties faced by the INS today are partly of our own making.

The INS methods under review in this case are, in my view, more the product of expedience than of prudent law enforcement policy. The Immigration and Nationality Act establishes a quota-based system for regulating the admission of immigrants to this country which is designed to operate primarily at our borders. See 8 U. S. C. §§ 1151-1153, 1221-1225. See generally Developments, 96 Harv. L. Rev., at 1334-1869. With respect to Mexican immigration, however, this system has almost completely broken down. This breakdown is due in part, of course, to the considerable practical problems of patroling a 2,000-mile border; it is, however, also the result of our failure to commit sufficient resources to the border patrol effort. See Administration’s Proposals on Immigration and Refugee Policy: Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and International Law of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and the Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Policy of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1981) (statement of Attorney General Smith); see also Developments, 96 Harv. L. Rev., at 1439. Furthermore, the Act expressly exempts American businesses that employ undocumented aliens from all criminal sanctions, 8 U. S. C. § 1324(a), thereby adding to the already powerful incentives for aliens to cross our borders illegally in search of employment.8

*241In the face of these facts, it seems anomalous to insist that the INS must now be permitted virtually unconstrained discretion to conduct wide-ranging searches for undocumented aliens at otherwise lawful places of employment in the interior of the United States. What this position amounts to, I submit, is an admission that since we have allowed border enforcement to collapse and since we are unwilling to require American employers to share any of the blame, we must, as a matter of expediency, visit all of the burdens of this jury-rigged enforcement scheme on the privacy interests of completely lawful citizens and resident aliens who are subjected to these factory raids solely because they happen to work alongside some undocumented aliens.9 The average American, as we have long recognized, see Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 154 (1925), expects some interference with his or her liberty when seeking to cross the Nation’s borders, but until today’s decision no one would ever have expected the same treatment while lawfully at work in the country’s interior. Because the conditions which spawned such expedient solutions are in no sense the fault of these *242lawful workers, the Court, as the guardian of their constitutional rights, should attend to this problem with greater sensitivity before simply pronouncing the Fourth Amendment a dead letter in the context of immigration enforcement. The answer to these problems, I suggest, does not lie in abandoning our commitment to protecting the cherished rights secured by the Fourth Amendment, but rather may be found by reexamining our immigration policy.

I dissent.

*431Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We have held that the Fourth Amendment permits police officers to approach individuals at random in airport lobbies and other public places to ask them questions and to request consent to search their luggage, so long as a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate. This case requires us to determine whether the same rule applies to police encounters that take place on a bus.

I

Drug interdiction efforts have led to the use of police surveillance at airports, train stations, and bus depots. Law enforcement officers stationed at such locations routinely approach individuals, either randomly or because they suspect in some vague way that the individuals may be engaged in criminal activity, and ask them potentially incriminating questions. Broward County has adopted such a program. County Sheriff’s Department officers routinely board buses at scheduled stops and ask passengers for permission to search their luggage.

In this case, two officers discovered cocaine when they searched a suitcase belonging to Terrance Bostick. The underlying facts of the search are in dispute, but the Florida Supreme Court, whose decision we review here, stated explicitly the factual premise for its decision:

“ ‘Two officers, complete with badges, insignia and one of them holding a recognizable zipper pouch, containing a pistol, boarded a bus bound from Miami to Atlanta during a stopover in Fort Lauderdale. Eyeing the passengers, the officers, admittedly without articulable suspicion, picked out the defendant passenger and asked to inspect his ticket and identification. The ticket, from Miami to Atlanta, matched the defendant’s identification and both were immediately returned to him as unremarkable. However, the two police officers persisted and explained their presence as narcotics agents on the *432lookout for illegal drugs. In pursuit of that aim, they then requested the defendant’s consent to search his luggage. Needless to say, there is a conflict in the evidence about whether the defendant consented to the search of the second bag in which the contraband was found and as to whether he was informed of his right to refuse consent. However, any conflict must be resolved in favor of the state, it being a question of fact decided by the trial judge.’” 554 So. 2d 1153, 1154-1155 (1989), quoting 510 So. 2d 321, 322 (Fla. App. 1987) (Letts, J., dissenting in part).

Two facts are particularly worth noting. First, the police specifically advised Bostick that he had the right to refuse consent. Bostick appears to have disputed the point, but, as the Florida Supreme Court noted explicitly, the trial court resolved this evidentiary conflict in the State’s favor. Second, at no time did the officers threaten Bostick with a gun. The Florida Supreme Court indicated that one officer carried a zipper pouch containing a pistol — the equivalent of carrying a gun in a holster — but the court did not suggest that the gun was ever removed from its pouch, pointed at Bostick, or otherwise used in a threatening manner. The dissent’s characterization of the officers as “gun-wielding inquisitor[s],” post, at 448, is colorful, but lacks any basis in fact.

Bostick was arrested and charged with trafficking in cocaine. He moved to suppress the cocaine on the grounds that it had been seized in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion but made no factual findings. Bostick subsequently entered a plea of guilty, but reserved the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.

The Florida District Court of Appeal affirmed, but considered the issue sufficiently important that it certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court. 510 So. 2d, at 322. The *433Supreme Court reasoned that Bostick had been seized because a reasonable passenger in his situation would not have felt free to leave the bus to avoid questioning by the police. 554 So. 2d, at 1154. It rephrased and answered the certified question so as to make the bus setting dispositive in every case. It ruled categorically that “ ‘an impermissible seizure result[s] when police mount a drug search on buses during scheduled stops and question boarded passengers without articulable reasons for doing so, thereby obtaining consent to search the passengers’ luggage.’” Ibid. The Florida Supreme Court thus adopted a per se rule that the Broward County Sheriff’s practice of “working the buses” is unconstitutional.* The result of this decision is that police in Florida, as elsewhere, may approach persons at random in most public places, ask them questions and seek consent to a search, see id., at 1156; but they may not engage in the same behavior on a bus. Id., at 1157. We granted certiorari, 498 U. S. 894 (1990), to determine whether the Florida Supreme Court’s per se rule is consistent with our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

II

The sole issue presented for our review is whether a police encounter on a bus of the type described above necessarily constitutes a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The State concedes, and we accept for purposes of this decision, that the officers lacked the reasonable *434suspicion required to justify a seizure and that, if a seizure took place, the drugs found in Bostick’s suitcase must be suppressed as tainted fruit.

Our cases make it clear that a seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions. So long as a reasonable person would feel free “to disregard the police and go about his business,” California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 628 (1991), the encounter is consensual and no reasonable suspicion is required. The encounter will not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny unless it loses its consensual nature. The Court made precisely this point in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 19, n. 16 (1968): “Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a ‘seizure’ has occurred.”

Since Terry, we have held repeatedly that mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure. In Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983) (plurality opinion), for example, we explained that “law enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions.” Id., at 497; see id., at 523, n. 3 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).

There is no doubt that if this same encounter had taken place before Bostick boarded the bus or in the lobby of the bus terminal, it would not rise to the level of a seizure. The Court has dealt with similar encounters in airports and has found them to be “the sort of consensual encounters] that im-plicare] no Fourth Amendment interest.” Florida v. Rodriguez, 469 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1984). We have stated that even *435when officers have no basis for suspecting a particular individual, they may generally ask questions of that individual, see INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210, 216 (1984); Rodriguez, supra, at 5-6; ask to examine the individual’s identification, see Delgado, supra, at 216; Royer, supra, at 501 (plurality opinion); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 557-558 (1980); and request consent to search his or her luggage, see Royer, supra, at 501 (plurality opinion) — as long as the police do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required.

Bostick insists that this case is different because it took place in the cramped confines of a bus. A police encounter is much more intimidating in this setting, he argues, because police tower over a seated passenger and there is little room to move around. Bostick claims to find support in language from Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 573 (1988), and other cases, indicating that a seizure occurs when a reasonable person would believe that he or she is not “free to leave.” Bostick maintains that a reasonable bus passenger would not have felt free to leave under the circumstances of this case because there is nowhere to go on a bus. Also, the bus was about to depart. Had Bostick disembarked, he would have risked being stranded and losing whatever baggage he had locked away in the luggage compartment.

The Florida Supreme Court found this argument persuasive, so much so that it adopted a per se rule prohibiting the police from randomly boarding buses as a means of drug interdiction. The state court erred, however, in focusing on whether Bostick was “free to leave” rather than on the principle that those words were intended to capture. When police attempt to question a person who is walking down the street or through an airport lobby, it makes sense to inquire whether a reasonable person would feel free to continue walking. But when the person is seated on a bus and has no desire to leave, the degree to which a reasonable person *436would feel that he or she could leave is not an accurate measure of the coercive effect of the encounter.

Here, for example, the mere fact that Bostick did not feel free to leave the bus does not mean that the police seized him. Bostick was a passenger on a bus that was scheduled to depart. He would not have felt free to leave the bus even if the police had not been present. Bostick’s movements were “confined” in a sense, but this was the natural result of his decision to take the bus; it says nothing about whether or not the police conduct at issue was coercive.

In this respect, the Court’s decision in INS v. Delgado, supra, is dispositive. At issue there was the INS’ practice of visiting factories at random and questioning employees to determine whether any were illegal aliens. Several INS agents would stand near the building’s exits, while other agents walked through the factory questioning workers. The Court acknowledged that the workers may not have been free to leave their worksite, but explained that this was not the result of police activity: “Ordinarily, when people are at work their freedom to move about has been meaningfully restricted, not by the actions of law enforcement officials, but by the workers’ voluntary obligations to their employers.” Id., at 218. We concluded that there was no seizure because, even though the workers were not free to leave the building without being questioned, the agents’ conduct should have given employees “no reason to believe that they would be detained if they gave truthful answers to the questions put to them or if they simply refused to answer.” Ibid.

The present case is analytically indistinguishable from Delgado. Like the workers in that case, Bostick’s freedom of movement was restricted by a factor independent of police conduct — i. e., by his being a passenger on a bus. Accordingly, the “free to leave” analysis on which Bostick relies is inapplicable. In such a situation, the appropriate inquiry is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. This *437formulation follows logically from prior cases and breaks no new ground. We have said before that the crucial test is whether, taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, the police conduct would “have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.” Chesternut, supra, at 569. See also Hodari D., 499 U. S., at 628. Where the encounter takes place is one factor, but it is not the only one. And, as the Solicitor General correctly observes, an individual may decline an officer’s request without fearing prosecution. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25. We have consistently held that a refusal to cooperate, without more, does not furnish the minimal level of objective justification needed for a detention or seizure. See Delgado, supra, at 216-217; Royer, 460 U. S., at 498 (plurality opinion); Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 52-53 (1979).

The facts of this case, as described by the Florida Supreme Court, leave some doubt whether a seizure occurred. Two officers walked up to Bostick on the bus, asked him a few questions, and asked if they could search his bags. As we have explained, no seizure occurs when police ask questions of an individual, ask to examine the individual’s identification, and request consent to search his or her luggage — so long as the officers do not convey a message that compliance with their requests is required. Here, the facts recited by the Florida Supreme Court indicate that the officers did not point guns at Bostick or otherwise threaten him and that they specifically advised Bostick that he could refuse consent.

Nevertheless, we refrain from deciding whether or not a seizure occurred in this case. The trial court made no express findings of fact, and the Florida Supreme Court rested its decision on a single fact — that the encounter took place on a bus —rather than on the totality of the circumstances. We remand so that the Florida courts may evaluate the seizure question under the correct legal standard. We do reject, however, Bostick’s argument that he must have been seized *438because no reasonable person would freely consent to a search of luggage that he or she knows contains drugs. This argument cannot prevail because the “reasonable person” test presupposes an innocent person. See Royer, supra, at 519, n. 4 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (“The fact that [respondent] knew the search was likely to turn up contraband is of course irrelevant; the potential intrusiveness of the officers’ conduct must be judged from the viewpoint of an innocent person in [his] position”). Accord, Chesternut, 486 U. S., at 574 (“This ‘reasonable person’ standard . . . ensures that the scope of Fourth Amendment protection does not vary with the state of mind of the particular individual being approached”).

The dissent characterizes our decision as holding that police may board buses and by an “intimidating show of authority,” post, at 447 (emphasis added), demand of passengers their “voluntary” cooperation. That characterization is incorrect. Clearly, a bus passenger’s decision to cooperate with law enforcement officers authorizes the police to conduct a search without first obtaining a warrant only if the cooperation is voluntary. “Consent” that is the product of official intimidation or harassment is not consent at all. Citizens do not forfeit their constitutional rights when they are coerced to comply with a request that they would prefer to refuse. The question to be decided by the Florida courts on remand is whether Bostick chose to permit the search of his luggage.

The dissent also attempts to characterize our decision as applying a lesser degree of constitutional protection to those individuals who travel by bus, rather than by other forms of transportation. This, too, is an erroneous characterization. Our Fourth Amendment inquiry in this case — whether a reasonable person would have felt free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter — applies equally to police encounters that take place on trains, planes, and city streets. It is the dissent that would single out this particu*439lar mode of travel for differential treatment by adopting a per se rule that random bus searches are unconstitutional.

The dissent reserves its strongest criticism for the proposition that police officers can approach individuals as to whom they have no reasonable suspicion and ask them potentially incriminating questions. But this proposition is by no means novel; it has been endorsed by the Court any number of times. Terry, Royer, Rodriguez, and Delgado are just a few examples. As we have explained, today’s decision follows logically from those decisions and breaks no new ground. Unless the dissent advocates overruling a long, unbroken line of decisions dating back more than 20 years, its criticism is not well taken.

This Court, as the dissent correctly observes, is not empowered to suspend constitutional guarantees so that the Government may more effectively wage a “war on drugs.” See post, at 440, 450-451. If that war is to be fought, those who fight it must respect the rights of individuals, whether or not those individuals are suspected of having committed a crime. By the same token, this Court is not empowered to forbid law enforcement practices simply because it considers them distasteful. The Fourth Amendment proscribes unreasonable searches and seizures; it does not proscribe voluntary cooperation. The cramped confines of a bus are one relevant factor that should be considered in evaluating whether a passenger’s consent is voluntary. We cannot agree, however, with the Florida Supreme Court that this single factor will be dispositive in every case.

We adhere to the rule that, in order to determine whether a particular encounter constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the encounter to determine whether the police conduct would have communicated to a reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. That rule applies to encounters that take place on a city street or in an airport lobby, and it applies equally to *440encounters on a bus. The Florida Supreme Court erred in adopting a per se rule.

The judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Marshall,

with whom Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.

Our Nation, we are told, is engaged in a “war on drugs.” No one disputes that it is the job of law-enforcement officials to devise effective weapons for fighting this war. But the effectiveness of a law-enforcement technique is not proof of its constitutionality. The general warrant, for example, was certainly an effective means of law enforcement. Yet it was one of the primary aims of the Fourth Amendment to protect citizens from the tyranny of being singled out for search and seizure without particularized suspicion notwithstanding the effectiveness of this method. See Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 625-630 (1886); see also Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, 171 (1947) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). In my view, the law-enforcement technique with which we are confronted in this case — the suspicionless police sweep of buses in intrastate or interstate travel — bears all of the indicia of coercion and unjustified intrusion associated with the general warrant. Because I believe that the bus sweep at issue in this case violates the core values of the Fourth Amendment, I dissent.

HH

At issue in this ease is a new and increasingly common tactic in the war on drugs”: the suspicionless police sweep of buses in interstate or intrastate travel. United States v. Lewis, 287 U. S. App. D. C. 306, 307, 921 F. 2d 1294, 1295 (1990); see United States v. Flowers, 912 F. 2d 707, 710 (CA4 1990) (describing technique in Charlotte, North Carolina); United States v. Madison, 936 F. 2d 90, 91 (CA2 1991) (de*441scribing technique in Port Authority terminal in New York City); United States v. Chandler, 744 F. Supp. 333, 335 (DC 1990) (“[I]t has become routine to subject interstate travelers to warrantless searches and intimidating interviews while sitting aboard a bus stopped for a short layover in the Capital”); 554 So. 2d 1153, 1156-1157 (Fla. 1989) (describing Florida police policy of “ ‘working the buses’ ”); see also ante, at 431. Typically under this technique, a group of state or federal officers will board a bus while it is stopped at an intermediate point on its route. Often displaying badges, weapons or other indicia of authority, the officers identify themselves and announce their purpose to intercept drug traffickers. They proceed to approach individual passengers, requesting them to show identification, produce their tickets, and explain the purpose of their travels. Never do the officers advise the passengers that they are free not to speak with the officers. An “interview” of this type ordinarily culminates in a request for consent to search the passenger’s luggage. See generally United States v. Lewis, supra, at 308, 921 F. 2d, at 1296; United States v. Flowers, supra, at 708-709; United States v. Madison, supra, at 91; 554 So. 2d, at 1154.

These sweeps are conducted in “dragnet” style. The police admittedly act without an “articulable suspicion” in deciding which buses to board and which passengers to approach for interviewing.1 By proceeding systematically in this *442fashion, the police are able to engage in a tremendously high volume of searches. See, e. g., Florida v. Kerwick, 512 So. 2d 347, 348-349 (Fla. App. 1987) (single officer employing sweep technique able to search over 3,000 bags in nine-month period). The percentage of successful drug interdictions is low. See United States v. Flowers, supra, at 710 (sweep of 100 buses resulted in seven arrests).

To. put it mildly, these sweeps “are inconvenient, intrusive, and intimidating.” United States v. Chandler, 744 F. Supp., at 335. They occur within cramped confines, with officers typically placing themselves in between the passenger selected for an interview and the exit of the bus. See, e. g., id., at 336. Because the bus is only temporarily stationed at a point short of its destination, the passengers are in no position to leave as a means of evading the officers’ questioning. Undoubtedly, such a sweep holds up the progress of the bus. See United States v. Fields, 909 F. 2d 470, 474 n. 2 (CA11 1990); cf. United States v. Rembert, 694 F. Supp. 163, 175 (WDNC 1988) (reporting testimony of officer that he makes ‘“every effort in the world not to delay the bus’” but that the driver does not leave terminal until sweep is complete). Thus, this “new and increasingly common tactic,” United States v. Lewis, supra, at 307, 921 F. 2d, at 1295, burdens the experience of traveling by bus with a degree of governmental interference to which, until now, our society has been proudly unaccustomed. See, e. g., State ex rel. Ekstrom v. Justice Court, 136 Ariz. 1, 6, 663 P. 2d 992, 997 (1983) (Feldman, J., concurring) (“The thought that an American can be compelled to ‘show his papers’ before exercising his right to walk the streets, drive the highways or board the trains is repugnant to American institutions and ideals”).

*443This aspect of the suspicionless sweep has not been lost on many of the lower courts called upon to review the constitutionality of this practice. Remarkably, the courts located at the heart of the “drug war’’ have been the most adamant in condemning this technique As one Florida court put it:

“ ‘[T]he evidence in this cause has evoked images of other days, under other flags, when no man traveled his nation’s roads or railways without fear of unwarranted interruption, by individuals who held temporary power in the Government. The spectre of American citizens being asked, by badge-wielding police, for identification, travel papers — in short a raison d’etre — is foreign to any fair reading of the Constitution, and its guarantee of human liberties. This is not Hitler’s Berlin, nor Stalin’s Moscow, nor is it white supremacist South Africa. Yet in Broward County, Florida, these police officers approach every person on board buses and trains (“that time permits”) and check identification [and] tickets, [and] ask to search luggage — all in the name of “voluntary cooperation” with law enforcement . . . .’” 554 So. 2d, at 1158, quoting State v. Kerwick, supra, at 348-349 (quoting trial court order).

The District Court for the District of Columbia spoke in equally pointed words:

“It seems rather incongruous at this point in the world’s history that we find totalitarian states becoming more like our free society while we in this nation are taking on their former trappings of suppressed liberties and freedoms.”

“The random indiscriminate stopping and questioning of individuals on interstate busses seems to have gone too far. If this Court approves such ‘bus stops’ and allows prosecutions to be based on evidence seized as a result of such ‘stops,’ then we will have stripped our *444citizens of basic Constitutional protections. Such action would be inconsistent with what this nation has stood for during its 200 years of existence. If passengers on a bus passing through the Capital of this great nation cannot be free from police interference where there is absolutely no basis for the police officers to stop and question them, then the police will be free to accost people on our streets without any reason or cause. In this ‘anything goes’ war on drugs, random knocks on the doors of our citizens’ homes seeking ‘consent’ to search for drugs cannot be far away. This is not America.” United States v. Lewis, 728 F. Supp. 784, 788-789, rev’d, 287 U. S. App. D. C. 306, 921 F. 2d 1294 (1990).

See also United States v. Alexander, 755 F. Supp. 448, 453 (DC 1991); United States v. Madison, 744 F. Supp. 490, 495-497 (SDNY 1990), rev’d, 936 F. 2d 90 (CA2 1991); United States v. Chandler, supra, at, 335-336; United States v. Mark, 742 F. Supp. 17, 18-19 (DC 1990); United States v. Alston, 742 F. Supp. 13, 15 (DC 1990); United States v. Cothran, 729 F. Supp. 153, 156-158 (DC 1990), rev’d, 287 U. S. App. D. C. 306, 921 F. 2d 1294 (1990); United States v. Felder, 732 F. Supp. 204, 209 (DC 1990).

The question for this Court, then, is whether the suspicion-less, dragnet-style sweep of buses in intrastate and interstate travel is consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The majority suggests that this latest tactic in the drug war is perfectly compatible with the Constitution. I disagree.

II

I have no objection to the manner m which the majority frames the test for determining whether a suspicionless bus sweep amounts to a Fourth Amendment “seizure.” I agree that the appropriate question is whether a passenger who is approached during such a sweep “would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter.” *445 Ante, at 436. What I cannot understand is how the majority can possibly suggest an affirmative answer to this question.

The majority reverses what it characterizes as the Florida Supreme Court’s “per se rule” against suspicionless encounters between the police and bus passengers, see ante, at 433, 435-440, suggesting only in dictum its “doubt” that a seizure occurred on the facts of this case, see ante, at 437. However, the notion that the Florida Supreme Court decided this case on the basis of any “per se rule” independent of the facts of this case is wholly a product of the majority’s imagination. As the majority acknowledges, the Florida Supreme Court “stated explicitly the factual premise for its decision.” Ante, at 431. This factual premise contained all of the details of the encounter between respondent and the police. See 554 So. 2d, at 1154; ante, at 431-432. The lower court’s analysis of whether respondent was seized drew heavily on these facts, and the court repeatedly emphasized that its conclusion was based on “all the circumstances” of this case. 554 So. 2d, at 1157 (emphasis added); see ibid. (“Here, the circumstances indicate that the officers effectively ‘seized’ [respondent]” (emphasis added)).

The majority’s conclusion that the Florida Supreme Court, contrary to all appearances, ignored these facts is based solely on the failure of the lower court to expressly incorporate all of the facts into its reformulation of the certified question on which respondent took his appeal. See ante, at 433.2 The majority never explains the basis of its implausible assumption that the Florida Supreme Court intended its phrasing of the certified question to trump its opinion’s careful treatment of the facts in this case. Certainly, when this Court issues an opinion, it does not intend lower courts and *446parties to treat as irrelevant the analysis of facts that the parties neglected to cram into the question presented in the petition for certiorari. But in any case, because the issue whether a seizure has occurred in any given factual setting is a question of law, see United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 554-555 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.); United States v. Maragh, 282 U. S. App. D. C. 256, 258-259, 894 F. 2d 415, 417-418 (CADC), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 880 (1990), nothing prevents this Court from deciding on its own whether a seizure occurred based on all of the facts of this case as they appear in the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court.

These facts exhibit all of the elements of coercion associated with a typical bus sweep. Two officers boarded the Greyhound bus on which respondent was a passenger while the bus, en route from Miami to Atlanta, was on a brief stop to pick up passengers in Fort Lauderdale. The officers made a visible display of their badges and wore bright green “raid” jackets bearing the insignia of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department; one held a gun in a recognizable weapons pouch. See 554 So. 2d, at 1154, 1157. These facts alone constitute an intimidating “show of authority.” See Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 575 (1988) (display of weapon contributes to coercive environment); United States v. Mendenhall, supra, at 554 (opinion of Stewart, J.) (“threatening presence of several officers” and “display of a weapon”); id., at 555 (uniformed attire). Once on board, the officers approached respondent, who was sitting in the back of the bus, identified themselves as narcotics officers and began to question him. See 554 So. 2d, at 1154. One officer stood in front of respondent’s seat, partially blocking the narrow aisle through which respondent would have been required to pass to reach the exit of the bus. See id., at 1157.

As far as is revealed by facts on which the Florida Supreme Court premised its decision, the officers did not advise respondent that he was free to break off this “interview.” Inexplicably, the majority repeatedly stresses the trial court’s *447implicit finding that the police officers advised respondent that he was free to refuse permission to search his travel bag. See ante, at 432, 437-438. This aspect of the exchange between respondent and the police is completely irrelevant to the issue before us. For as the State concedes, and as the majority purports to “accept,” id., at 433-434, if respondent was unlawfully seized when the officers approached him and initiated questioning, the resulting search was likewise unlawful no matter how well advised respondent was of his right to refuse it. See Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 501, 507-508 (1983) (plurality opinion); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963). Consequently, the issue is not whether a passenger in respondent’s position would have felt free to deny consent to the search of his bag, but whether such a passenger — without being apprised of his rights — would have felt free to terminate the antecedent encounter with the police.

Unlike the majority, I have no doubt that the answer to this question is no. Apart from trying to accommodate the officers, respondent had only two options. First, he could have remained seated while obstinately refusing to respond to the officers’ questioning. But in light of the intimidating show of authority that the officers made upon boarding the bus, respondent reasonably could have believed that such behavior would only arouse the officers’ suspicions and intensify their interrogation. Indeed, officers who carry out bus sweeps like the one at issue here frequently admit that this is the effect of a passenger’s refusal to cooperate. See, e. g., United States v. Cothran, 729 F. Supp., at 156; United States v. Felder, 732 F. Supp., at 205. The majority’s observation that a mere refusal to answer questions, “without more,” does not give rise to a reasonable basis for seizing a passenger, ante, at 437, is utterly beside the point, because a passenger unadvised of his rights and otherwise unversed in constitutional law has no reason to know that the police cannot hold his refusal to cooperate against him.

*448Second, respondent could have tried to escape the officers’ presence by leaving the bus altogether. But because doing so would have required respondent to squeeze past the gun-wielding inquisitor who was blocking the aisle of the bus, this hardly seems like a course that respondent reasonably would have viewed as available to him.3 The majority lamely protests that nothing in the stipulated facts shows that the questioning officer “point[ed] [his] gu[n] at [respondent] or otherwise threatened] him” with the weapon. Ante, at 437 (emphasis added). Our decisions recognize the obvious point, however, that the choice of the police to “display” their weapons during an encounter exerts significant coercive pressure on the confronted citizen. E. g., Michigan v. Chesternut, supra, at 575; United States v. Mendenhall, supra, at 554. We have never suggested that the police must go so far as to put a citizen in immediate apprehension of being shot before a court can take account of the intimidating effect of being questioned by an officer with weapon in hand.

Even if respondent had perceived that the officers would let him leave the bus, moreover, he could not reasonably have been expected to resort to this means of evading their intrusive questioning. For so far as respondent knew, the bus’ departure from the terminal was imminent. Unlike a person approached by the police on the street, see Michigan v. Chesternut, supra, or at a bus or airport terminal after reaching his destination, see United States v. Mendenhall, supra, a passenger approached by the police at an intermediate point in a long bus journey cannot simply leave the scene and repair to a safe haven to avoid unwanted probing by law-enforcement officials. The vulnerability that an intrastate or interstate traveler experiences when confronted by the police outside of his “own familiar territory” surely aggravates *449the coercive quality of such an encounter. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 247 (1973).

The case on which the majority primarily relies, INS v. Delgado, 466 U. S. 210 (1984), is distinguishable in every relevant respect. In Delgado, this Court held that workers approached by law-enforcement officials inside of a factory were not “seized” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The Court was careful to point out, however, that the presence of the agents did not furnish the workers with a reasonable basis for believing that they were not free to leave the factory, as at least some of them did. See id., at 218-219, and n. 7. Unlike passengers confronted by law-enforcement officials on a bus stopped temporarily at an intermediate point in its journey, workers approached by law-enforcement officials at their workplace need not abandon personal belongings and venture into unfamiliar environs in order to avoid unwanted questioning. Moreover, the workers who did not leave the building in Delgado remained free to move about the entire factory, see id., at 218, a considerably less confining environment than a bus. Finally, contrary to the officer who confronted respondent, the law-enforcement officials in Delgado did not conduct their interviews with guns in hand. See id., at 212.

Rather than requiring the police to justify the coercive tactics employed here, the majority blames respondent for his own sensation of constraint. The majority concedes that respondent “did not feel free to leave the bus” as a means of breaking off the interrogation by the Broward County officers. Ante, at 436. But this experience of confinement, the majority explains, “was the natural result of his decision to take the bus.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Thus, in the majority’s view, because respondent’s “freedom of movement was restricted by a factor independent of police conduct — i. e., by his being a passenger on a bus,” ante, at 436 — respondent was not seized for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.

*450This reasoning borders on sophism and trivializes the values that underlie the Fourth Amendment. Obviously, a person’s “voluntary decision” to place himself in a room with only one exit does not authorize the police to force an encounter upon him by placing themselves in front of the exit. It is no more acceptable for the police to force an encounter on a person by exploiting his “voluntary decision” to expose himself to perfectly legitimate personal or social constraints. By consciously deciding to single out persons who have undertaken interstate or intrastate travel, officers who conduct suspi-cionless, dragnet-style sweeps put passengers to the choice of cooperating or of exiting their buses and possibly being stranded in unfamiliar locations. It is exactly because this “choice” is no “choice” at all that police engage this technique.

In my view, the Fourth Amendment clearly condemns the suspicionless, dragnet-style sweep of intrastate or interstate buses. Withdrawing this particular weapon from the government’s drug-war arsenal would hardly leave the police without any means of combatting the use of buses as instru-mentalities of the drug trade. The police would remain free, for example, to approach passengers whom they have a reasonable, articulable basis to suspect of criminal wrongdoing.4 Alternatively, they could continue to confront passengers without suspicion so long as they took simple steps, like advising the passengers confronted of their right to decline to be questioned, to dispel the aura of coercion and intimidation that pervades such encounters. There is no reason to expect that such requirements would render the Nation’s buses law-enforcement-free zones.

r — H I — l

The majority attempts to gloss over the violence that today’s decision does to the Fourth Amendment with empty admonitions. “If th[e] [war on drugs] is to be fought,” the ma*451jority intones, “those who fight it must respect the rights of individuals, whether or not those individuals are suspected of having committed a crime.” Ante, at 439. The majority’s actions, however, speak louder than its words.

I dissent.

*493Justice White

announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Marshall, Justice Powell, and Justice Stevens joined.

We are required in this case to determine whether the Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District, properly applied the precepts of the Fourth Amendment in holding that respondent Royer was being illegally detained at the time of his purported consent to a search of his luggage.

On January 3, 1978, Royer was observed at Miami International Airport by two plainclothes detectives of the Dade County, Fla., Public Safety Department assigned to the county’s Organized Crime Bureau, Narcotics Investigation Section.1 Detectives Johnson and Magdalena believed that Royer’s appearance, mannerisms, luggage, and actions fit the so-called “drug courier profile.”2 Royer, apparently unaware of the attention he had attracted, purchased a one-way ticket to New York City and checked his two suitcases, placing on each suitcase an identification tag bearing the name “Holt” and the destination “La Guardia.” As Royer made *494his way to the concourse which led to the airline boarding area, the two detectives approached him, identified themselves as policemen working out of the sheriff’s office, and asked if Royer had a “moment” to speak with them; Royer said “Yes.”

Upon request, but without oral consent, Royer produced for the detectives his airline ticket and his driver’s license. The airline ticket, like the baggage identification tags, bore the name “Holt,” while the driver’s license carried respondent’s correct name, “Royer.” When the detectives asked about the discrepancy, Royer explained that a friend had made the reservation in the name of “Holt.” Royer became noticeably more nervous during this conversation, whereupon the detectives informed Royer that they were in fact narcotics investigators and that they had reason to suspect him of transporting narcotics.

The detectives did not return his airline ticket and identification but asked Royer to accompany them to a room, approximately 40 feet away, adjacent to the concourse. Royer said nothing in response but went with the officers as he had been asked to do. The room was later described by Detective Johnson as a “large storage closet,” located in the stewardesses’ lounge and containing a small desk and two chairs. Without Royer’s consent or agreement, Detective Johnson, using Royer’s baggage check stubs, retrieved the “Holt” luggage from the airline and brought it to the room where respondent and Detective Magdalena were waiting. Royer was asked if he would consent to a search of the suitcases. Without orally responding to this request, Royer produced a key and unlocked one of the suitcases, which one detective then opened without seeking further assent from Royer. Marihuana was found in that suitcase. According to Detective Johnson, Royer stated that he did not know the combination to the lock on the second suitcase. When asked if he objected to the detective opening the second suitcase, Royer said “[n]o, go ahead,” and did not object when the de*495tective explained that the suitcase might have to be broken open. The suitcase was pried open by the officers and more marihuana was found. Royer was then told that he was under arrest. Approximately 15 minutes had elapsed from the time the detectives initially approached respondent until his arrest upon the discovery of the contraband.

Prior to his trial for felony possession of marihuana,3 Royer made a motion to suppress the evidence obtained in the search of the suitcases. The trial court found that Royer’s consent to the search was “freely and voluntarily given,” and that, regardless of the consent, the warrantless search was reasonable because “the officer doesn’t have the time to run out and get a search warrant because the plane is going to take off.”4 Following the denial of the motion to suppress, Royer changed his plea from “not guilty” to “nolo conten-dere,” specifically reserving the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.5 Royer was convicted.

The District Court of Appeal, sitting en banc, reversed Royer’s conviction.6 The court held that Royer had been involuntarily confined within the small room without probable cause; that the involuntary detention had exceeded the limited restraint permitted by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), at the time his consent to the search was obtained; and that the consent to search was therefore invalid because tainted by the unlawful confinement.7

*496Several factors led the court to conclude that respondent’s confinement was tantamount to arrest. Royer had “found himself in a small enclosed area being confronted by two police officers — a situation which presents an almost classic definition of imprisonment.” 389 So. 2d 1007, 1018 (1980). The detectives’ statement to Royer that he was suspected of transporting narcotics also bolstered the finding that Royer was “in custody” at the time the consent to search was given. Ibid. In addition, the detectives’ possession of Royer’s airline ticket and their retrieval and possession of his luggage made it clear, in the District Court of Appeal’s view, that Royer was not free to leave. Ibid.

At the suppression hearing Royer testified that he was under the impression that he was not free to leave the officers’ presence. The Florida District Court of Appeal found that this apprehension “was much more than a well-justified subjective belief,” for the State had conceded at oral argument before that court that “the officers would not have permitted Royer to leave the room even if he had erroneously thought he could.” Ibid. The nomenclature used to describe Royer’s confinement, the court found, was unimportant because under Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979), “a police confinement which . . . goes beyond the limited restraint of a Terry investigatory stop may be constitutionally justified only by probable cause.” 389 So. 2d, at 1019 (footnote omitted). Detective Johnson, who conducted the search, had specifically stated at the suppression hearing that he did not have probable cause to arrest Royer until the suitcases were opened and their contents revealed. *497 Ibid. In the absence of probable cause, the court concluded, Royer’s consent to search, given only after he had been unlawfully confined, was ineffective to justify the search. Ibid. Because there was no proof at all that a “break in the chain of illegality” had occurred, the court found that Royer’s consent was invalid as a matter of law. Id., at 1020. We granted the State’s petition for certiorari, 454 U. S. 1079 (1981), and now affirm.

II

Some preliminary observations are in order. First, it is unquestioned that without a warrant to search Royer’s luggage and in the absence of probable cause and exigent circumstances, the validity of the search depended on Royer’s purported consent. Neither is it disputed that where the validity of a search rests on consent, the State has the burden of proving that the necessary consent was obtained and that it was freely and voluntarily given, a burden that is not satisfied by showing a mere submission to a claim of lawful authority. Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U. S. 319, 329 (1979); Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 233-234 (1973); Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U. S. 543, 548-549 (1968); Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13 (1948); Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313, 317 (1921).

Second, law enforcement officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment by merely approaching an individual on the street or in another public place, by asking him if he is willing to answer some questions, by putting questions to him if the person is willing to listen, or by offering in evidence in a criminal prosecution his voluntary answers to such questions. See Dunaway v. New York, supra, at 210, n. 12; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 31, 32-33 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 34 (White, J., concurring). Nor would the fact that the officer identifies himself as a police officer, without more, convert the encounter into a seizure requiring some level of objective justification. United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 555 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.). The person *498approached, however, need not answer any question put to him; indeed, he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 32-33 (Harlan, J., concurring); id., at 34 (White, J., concurring). He may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so; and his refusal to listen or answer does not, without more, furnish those grounds. United States v. Mendenhall, supra, at 556 (opinion of Stewart, J.). If there is no detention — no seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment — then no constitutional rights have been infringed.

Third, it is also clear that not all seizures of the person must be justified by probable cause to arrest for a crime. Prior to Terry v. Ohio, supra, any restraint on the person amounting to a seizure for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment was invalid unless justified by probable cause. Dunaway v. New York, supra, at 207-209. Terry created a limited exception to this general rule: certain seizures are justifiable under the Fourth Amendment if there is articula-ble suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime. In that case, a stop and a frisk for weapons were found unexceptionable. Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972), applied the same approach in the context of an informant’s report that an unnamed individual in a nearby vehicle was carrying narcotics and a gun. Although not expressly authorized in Terry, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 881-882 (1975), was unequivocal in saying that reasonable suspicion of criminal activity warrants a temporary seizure for the purpose of questioning limited to the purpose of the stop. In Brignoni-Ponce, that purpose was to verify or dispel the suspicion that the immigration laws were being violated, a governmental interest that was sufficient to warrant temporary detention for limited questioning. Royer does not suggest, nor do we, that a similar rationale would not warrant temporary detention for questioning on less than probable cause where the public interest *499involved is the suppression of illegal transactions in drugs or of any other serious crime.

Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (1981), involved another circumstance in which a temporary detention on less than probable cause satisfied the ultimate test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. There the occupant of a house was detained while a search warrant for the house was being executed. We held that the warrant made the occupant sufficiently suspect to justify his temporary seizure. The “limited intrusio[n] on the personal security” of the person detained was justified “by such substantial law enforcement interests” that the seizure could be made on articulable suspicion not amounting to probable cause. Id., at 699.

Fourth, Terry and its progeny nevertheless created only limited exceptions to the general rule that seizures of the person require probable cause to arrest. Detentions may be “investigative” yet violative of the Fourth Amendment absent probable cause. In the name of investigating a person who is no more than suspected of criminal activity, the police may not carry out a full search of the person or of his automobile or other effects. Nor may the police seek to verify their suspicions by means that approach the conditions of arrest. Dunaway v. New York, swpra, made this clear. There, the suspect was taken to the police station from his home and, without being formally arrested, interrogated for an hour. The resulting incriminating statements were held inadmissible: reasonable suspicion of crime is insufficient to justify custodial interrogation even though the interrogation is investigative. Id., at 211-212. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), and Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969), are to the same effect.

The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures has always been interpreted to prevent a search that is not limited to the particularly described “place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized,” U. S. Const., Arndt. 4, even if the search is made pursuant to *500a warrant and based upon probable cause. The Amendment’s protection is not diluted in those situations where it has been determined that legitimate law enforcement interests justify a warrantless search: the search must be limited in scope to that which is justifed by the particular purposes served by the exception. For example, a warrantless search is permissible incident to a lawful arrest because of legitimate concerns for the safety of the officer and to prevent the destruction of evidence by the arrestee. E. g., Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 763 (1969). Nevertheless, such a search is limited to the person of the arrestee and the area immediately within his control. Id., at 762. Terry v. Ohio, supra, also embodies this principle: “The scope of the search must be ‘strictly tied to and justified by’ the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.” 392 U. S., at 19, quoting Warden v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 310 (1967) (For-tas, J., concurring). The reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment requires no less when the police action is a seizure permitted on less than probable cause because of legitimate law enforcement interests. The scope of the detention must be carefully tailored to its underlying justification.

The predicate permitting seizures on suspicion short of probable cause is that law enforcement interests warrant a limited intrusion on the personal security of the suspect. The scope of the intrusion permitted will vary to some extent with the particular facts and circumstances of each case. This much, however, is clear: an investigative detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop. Similarly, the investigative methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer’s suspicion in a short period of time. See, e. g., United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, supra, at 881-882; Adams v. Williams, supra, at 146. It is the State’s burden to demonstrate that the seizure it seeks to justify on the basis of a reasonable suspicion was sufficiently limited in scope and duration to satisfy the conditions of an investigative seizure.

*501Fifth, Dunaway and Brown hold that statements given during a period of illegal detention are inadmissible even though voluntarily given if they are the product of the illegal detention and not the result of an independent act of free will. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S., at 218-219; Brown v. Illinois, supra, at 601-602. In this respect those cases reiterated one of the principal holdings of Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U. S. 471 (1963).

Sixth, if the events in this case amounted to no more than a permissible police encounter in a public place or a justifiable Terry-type detention, Royer’s consent, if voluntary, would have been effective to legalize the search of his two suitcases. Cf. United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 424-425 (1976). The Florida District Court of Appeal in the case before us, however, concluded not only that Royer had been seized when he gave his consent to search his luggage but also that the bounds of an investigative stop had been exceeded. In its view the “confinement” in this case went beyond the limited restraint of a Terry investigative stop, and Royer’s consent was thus tainted by the illegality, a conclusion that required reversal in the absence of probable cause to arrest. The question before us is whether the record warrants that conclusion. We think that it does.

HH HH I — I

The State proffers three reasons for holding that when Royer consented to the search of his luggage, he was not being illegally detained. First, it is submitted that the entire encounter was consensual and hence Royer was not being held against his will at all. We find this submission untenable. Asking for and examining Royer’s ticket and his driver’s license were no doubt permissible in themselves, but when the officers identified themselves as narcotics agents, told Royer that he was suspected of transporting narcotics, and asked him to accompany them to the police room, while retaining his ticket and driver’s license and without indicating in any way that he was free to depart, Royer was effectively seized for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment. *502These circumstances surely amount to a show of official authority such that “a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S., at 554 (opinion of Stewart, J.) (footnote omitted).

Second, the State submits that if Royer was seized, there existed reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify a temporary detention and that the limits of a Terry-type stop were never exceeded. We agree with the State that when the officers discovered that Royer was traveling under an assumed name, this fact, and the facts already known to the officers— paying cash for a one-way ticket, the mode of checking the two bags, and Royer’s appearance and conduct in general— were adequate grounds for suspecting Royer of carrying drugs and for temporarily detaining him and his luggage while they attempted to verify or dispel their suspicions in a manner that did not exceed the limits of an investigative detention. We also agree that had Royer voluntarily consented to the search of his luggage while he was justifiably being detained on reasonable suspicion, the products of the search would be admissible against him. We have concluded, however, that at the time Royer produced the key to his suitcase, the detention to which he was then subjected was a more serious intrusion on his personal liberty than is allowable on mere suspicion of criminal activity.

By the time Royer was informed that the officers wished to examine his luggage, he had identified himself when approached by the officers and had attempted to explain the discrepancy between the name shown on his identification and the name under which he had purchased his ticket and identified his luggage. The officers were not satisfied, for they informed him they were narcotics agents and had reason to believe that he was carrying illegal drugs. They requested him to accompany them to the police room. Royer went with them. He found himself in a small room — a large closet — equipped with a desk and two chairs. He was alone with two police officers who again told him that they thought *503he was carrying narcotics. He also found that the officers, without his consent, had retrieved his checked luggage from the airline. What had begun as a consensual inquiry in a public place had escalated into an investigatory procedure in a police interrogation room, where the police, unsatisfied with previous explanations, sought to confirm their suspicions. The officers had Royer’s ticket, they had his identification, and they had seized his luggage. Royer was never informed that he was free to board his plane if he so chose, and he reasonably believed that he was being detained. At least as of that moment, any consensual aspects of the encounter had evaporated, and we cannot fault the Florida District Court of Appeal for concluding that Terry v. Ohio and the cases following it did not justify the restraint to which Royer was then subjected. As a practical matter, Royer was under arrest. Consistent with this conclusion, the State conceded in the Florida courts that Royer would not have been free to leave the interrogation room had he asked to do so.8 Furthermore, the State’s brief in this Court interprets the testimony of the officers at the suppression hearing as indicating that had Royer refused to consent to a search of his luggage, the officers would have held the luggage and sought a warrant to authorize the search. Brief for Petitioner 6.9

*504We also think that the officers’ conduct was more intrusive than necessary to effectuate an investigative detention otherwise authorized by the Terry line of cases. First, by returning his ticket and driver’s license, and informing him that he was free to go if he so desired, the officers might have obviated any claim that the encounter was anything but a consensual matter from start to finish. Second, there are undoubtedly reasons of safety and security that would justify moving a suspect from one location to another during an investigatory detention, such as from an airport concourse to a more *505private area. Cf. Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106, 109-111 (1977) (per curiam). There is no indication in this case that such reasons prompted the officers to transfer the site of the encounter from the concourse to the interrogation room. It appears, rather, that the primary interest of the officers was not in having an extended conversation with Royer but in the contents of his luggage, a matter which the officers did not pursue orally with Royer until after the encounter was relocated to the police room. The record does not reflect any facts which would support a finding that the legitimate law enforcement purposes which justified the detention in the first instance were furthered by removing Royer to the police room prior to the officers’ attempt to gain his consent to a search of his luggage. As we have noted, had Royer consented to a search on the spot, the search could have been conducted with Royer present in the area where the bags were retrieved by Detective Johnson and any evidence recovered would have been admissible against him. If the search proved negative, Royer would have been free to go much earlier and with less likelihood of missing his flight, which in itself can be a very serious matter in a variety of circumstances.

Third, the State has not touched on the question whether it would have been feasible to investigate the contents of Royer’s bags in a more expeditious way. The courts are not strangers to the use of trained dogs to detect the presence of controlled substances in luggage.10 There is no indication *506here that this means was not feasible and available. If it had been used, Royer and his luggage could have been momentarily detained while this investigative procedure was carried out. Indeed, it may be that no detention at all would have been necessary. A negative result would have freed Royer in short order; a positive result would have resulted in his justifiable arrest on probable cause.

We do not suggest that there is a litmus-paper test for distinguishing a consensual encounter from a seizure or for determining when a seizure exceeds the bounds of an investigative stop. Even in the discrete category of airport encounters, there will be endless variations in the facts and circumstances, so much variation that it is unlikely that the courts can reduce to a sentence or a paragraph a rule that will *507provide unarguable answers to the question whether there has been an unreasonable search or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Nevertheless, we must render judgment, and we think that the Florida District Court of Appeal cannot be faulted in concluding that the limits of a Terry-stop had been exceeded.

IV

The State’s third and final argument is that Royer was not being illegally held when he gave his consent because there was probable cause to arrest him at that time. Detective Johnson testified at the suppression hearing and the Florida District Court of Appeal held that there was no probable cause to arrest until Royer’s bags were opened, but the fact that the officers did not believe there was probable cause and proceeded on a consensual or Terry-stop rationale would not foreclose the State from justifying Royer’s custody by proving probable cause and hence removing any barrier to relying on Royer’s consent to search. Peters v. New York, decided with Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 66-67 (1968). We agree with the Florida District Court of Appeal, however, that probable cause to arrest Royer did not exist at the time he consented to the search of his luggage. The facts are that a nervous young man with two American Tourister bags paid cash for an airline ticket to a “target city.” These facts led to inquiry, which in turn revealed that the ticket had been bought under an assumed name. The proffered explanation did not satisfy the officers. We cannot agree with the State, if this is its position, that every nervous young man paying cash for a ticket to New York City under an assumed name and carrying two heavy American Tourister bags may be arrested and held to answer for a serious felony charge.

V

Because we affirm the Florida District Court of Appeal’s conclusion that Royer was being illegally detained when he consented to the search of his luggage, we agree that the con*508sent was tainted by the illegality and was ineffective to justify the search. The judgment of the Florida District Court of Appeal is accordingly

Affirmed.

Justice Powell,

concurring.

I join the plurality opinion. This is an airport “stop for questioning” case similar in its general setting to that before us in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980).1 The plurality opinion today has discussed helpfully the principles applicable to investigative stops for questioning. Since I was the author of one of the opinions in Mendenhall, id., at 560, I write briefly to repeat that the public has a compelling interest in identifying by all lawful means those who traffic in illicit drugs for personal profit. As the plurality opinion emphasizes, ante, at 506-507, the facts and circumstances of investigative stops necessarily vary. In view of the extent to which air transportation is used in the drug traffic, the fact that the stop at issue is made by trained officers in an airport warrants special consideration.2

This case, however, differs strikingly from Mendenhall in the circumstances following the lawful initial questioning and the request that the suspect accompany the officers to a more private place. Royer then found himself in a small, windowless room — described as a “large closet” — alone with two officers who, without his consent, already had obtained possession of his checked luggage. In addition, they had retained his driver’s license and airline ticket. Neither the evidence *509in this case nor common sense suggests that Royer was free to walk away. I agree with the plurality that as a practical matter he then was under arrest, and his surrender of the luggage key to the officers cannot be viewed as consensual.

Justice Brennan,

concurring in the result.

In this case the Florida District Court of Appeal’s decision rested on its holding that at some point after the initial stop the officers’ seizure of Royer matured into an arrest unsupported by probable cause. 389 So. 2d 1007, 1019 (1980) (en banc). Royer’s consent to the search of his suitcases, therefore, was tainted by the illegal arrest. Id., at 1019-1020. The District Court of Appeal’s conclusion is amply supported by the record and by our decision in Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979). I therefore concur that the District Court of Appeal’s judgment should be affirmed. But the plurality reaches certain issues that it clearly need not reach to support an affirmance.

To the extent that the plurality endorses the legality of the officers’ initial stop of Royer, see post, at 523, n. 3 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), it was wholly unnecessary to reach that question. For even assuming the legality of the initial stop, the plurality correctly holds, and I agree, that the officers’ subsequent actions clearly exceeded the permissible bounds of a Terry “investigative” stop. Ante, at 501, 507. “[A]ny ‘exception’ that could cover a seizure as intrusive as that in this case would threaten to swallow the general rule that Fourth Amendment seizures are ‘reasonable’ only if based on probable cause.” Dunaway v. New York, supra, at 213. Thus, most of the plurality’s discussion of the permissible scope of Terry investigative stops is also unnecessary to the decision.

I emphasize that Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), was a very limited decision that expressly declined to address the “constitutional propriety of an investigative ‘seizure’ upon less than probable cause for purposes of ‘detention’ and/or *510interrogation.” Id., at 19, n. 16. Terry simply held that under certain carefully defined circumstances a police officer “is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing . . . in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him.” Id., at 30. Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972), endorsed “brief” investigative stops based on reasonable suspicion, id., at 145-146, but the search for weapons upheld in that case was very limited and was based on Terry’s safety rationale. 407 U. S., at 146. In Adams, we stated that the purpose of the “limited” weapons search was “not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence . . . .” Ibid. In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873 (1975), we held that “when an officer’s observations lead him reasonably to suspect that a particular vehicle may contain aliens who are illegally in the country, he may stop the car briefly and investigate the circumstances that provoke suspicion.” Id., at 881. We based this holding on the importance of the governmental interest in stemming the flow of illegal aliens, on the minimal intrusion of a brief stop, and on the absence of practical alternatives for policing the border. Ibid. We noted the limited holdings of Terry and Adams and while authorizing the police to “question the driver and passengers about their citizenship and immigration status, and . . . ask them to explain suspicious circumstances,” we expressly stated that “any further detention or search must be based on consent or probable cause.” 422 U. S., at 881-882. See also Dunaway v. New York, supra, at 208-212 (discussing the narrow scope of Terry and its progeny).

The scope of a Terry-type “investigative” stop and any attendant search must be extremely limited or the Terry exception would “swallow the general rule that Fourth Amendment seizures [and searches] are ‘reasonable’ only if based on probable cause.” Dunaway v. New York, supra, at 213. In my view, any suggestion that the Terry reasonable-suspicion *511standard justifies anything but the briefest of detentions or the most limited of searches finds no support in the Terry line of cases.*

In any event, I dissent from the plurality’s view that the initial stop of Royer was legal. For plainly Royer was “seized” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment when the officers asked him to produce his driver’s license and airline ticket. Terry stated that “whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.” 392 U. S.v.at 16. Although I agree that “not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves ‘seizures’ of persons,” id., at 19, n. 16, and that policemen may approach citizens on the street and ask them questions without “seizing” them for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, once an officer has identified himself and asked a traveler for identification and his airline ticket, the traveler has been “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. By identifying themselves and asking for Royer’s airline ticket and driver’s license the officers, as a practical matter, engaged in a “show of authority” and “restrained *512[Royer’s] liberty.” Ibid. It is simply wrong to suggest that a traveler feels free to walk away when he has been approached by individuals who have identified themselves as police officers and asked for, and received, his airline ticket and driver’s license.

Before Terry, only “seizures” of persons based on probable cause were held to satisfy the Fourth Amendment. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S., at 208-209. As we stated in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, supra, however, Terry and Adams “establish that in appropriate circumstances the Fourth Amendment allows a properly limited ‘search’ or ‘seizure’ on facts that do not constitute probable cause to arrest or to search for contraband or evidence of crime.” 422 U. S., at 881. But to justify such a seizure an officer must have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity based on “specific and articulable facts . . . [and] rational inferences from those facts . . . .” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 21. See also Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 51 (1979). In this case, the officers decided to approach Royer because he was carrying American Tourister luggage, which appeared to be heavy; he was young; he was casually dressed; he appeared to be pale and nervous and was looking around at other people; he paid for his airline ticket in cash with a large number of bills; and he did not completely fill out the identification tags for his luggage, which was checked to New York. See ante, at 493, n. 2. These facts clearly are not sufficient to provide the reasonable suspicion of criminal activity necessary to justify the officers’ subsequent seizure of Royer. Indeed, considered individually or collectively, they are perfectly consistent with innocent behavior and cannot possibly give rise to any inference supporting a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The officers’ seizure of Royer, therefore, was illegal.

Although I recognize that the traffic in illicit drugs is a matter of pressing national concern, that cannot excuse this Court from exercising its unflagging duty to strike down official activity that exceeds the confines of the Constitution. *513In discussing the Fourth Amendment in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971), Justice Stewart stated: “In times of unrest, whether caused by crime or racial conflict or fear of internal subversion, this basic law and the values that it represents may appear unrealistic or ‘extravagant’ to some. But the values were those of the authors of our fundamental constitutional concepts.” Id., at 455 (plurality opinion). We must not allow our zeal for effective law enforcement to blind us to the peril to our free society that lies in this Court’s disregard of the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment.

Justice Blackmun,

dissenting.

Justice Powell, concurring in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980), observed:

“The public has a compelling interest in detecting those who would traffic in deadly drugs for personal profit. Few problems affecting the health and welfare of our population, particularly our young, cause greater concern than the escalating use of controlled substances. Much of the drug traffic is highly organized and conducted by sophisticated criminal syndicates. The profits are enormous. And many drugs . . . may be easily concealed. As a result, the obstacles to detection of illegal conduct may be unmatched in any other area of law enforcement.” Id., at 561-562.

In my view, the police conduct in this case was minimally intrusive. Given the strength of society’s interest in overcoming the extraordinary obstacles to the detection of drug traffickers, such conduct should not be subjected to a requirement of probable cause. Because the Court holds otherwise, I dissent.

The Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District, held that respondent Royer had been arrested without probable cause before he consented to the search of his luggage, and that his consent was therefore tainted by this illegal deten*514tion. I concur in the plurality’s adoption of the Fourth Amendment “seizure” standard proposed by Justice Stewart in Mendenhall: Fourth Amendment protections apply when “official authority” is exercised “such that ‘a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave.’ ” Ante, at 502, quoting 446 U. S., at 554. I do not quarrel with the plurality’s conclusion that at some point in this encounter, that threshold was passed. I also agree that the information available prior to the opening of Royer’s suitcases did not constitute probable cause to arrest; thus, if probable cause was required, the seizure was illegal and the resulting consent to search was invalid. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 216-219 (1979); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, 601-604 (1975). The dispositive issue, however, is whether the officers needed probable cause to arrest before they could take the actions that led to Royer’s consent and the subsequent discovery of the contraband. I conclude that they did not.

A

“ ‘[T]he key principle of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness — the balancing of competing interests.’ ” Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 700, n. 12 (1981), quoting Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S., at 219 (White, J., concurring). Previous cases suggest a two-step analysis to distinguish seizures requiring probable cause from those requiring reasonable suspicion. On the one hand, any formal arrest, and any seizure “having the essential attributes of a formal arrest, is unreasonable unless it is supported by probable cause.” Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S., at 700. On the other hand, a more limited intrusion, if supported by a special law enforcement need for greater flexibility, may be justifiable under the lesser “reasonable suspicion” standard. These lesser seizures are “not confined to the momentary, on-the-street detention accompanied by a frisk for weapons.” Ibid. In the case of a seizure less intrusive than a formal arrest, determining whether the less demanding reasonable-*515suspicion standard will be applied requires balancing the amount of intrusion upon individual privacy against the special law enforcement interests that would be served by permitting such an intrusion on less than probable cause. See Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S., at 699-701; United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S., at 561 (Powell, J., concurring in part); Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S., at 219-220 (White, J., concurring); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 555 (1976); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878-881 (1975).

B

At the suppression hearing in this case, Royer agreed that he was not formally arrested until after his suitcases were opened. App. 84A, 85A. In my view, it cannot fairly be said that, prior to the formal arrest, the functional equivalent of an arrest had taken place. The encounter had far more in common with automobile stops justifiable on reasonable suspicion, see United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 880-882, than with the detention deemed the functional equivalent of a formal arrest in Dunaway v. New York, supra. In Dunaway, the suspect was taken from his neighbor’s home and involuntarily transported to the police station in a squad car. At the precinct house, he was placed in an interrogation room and subjected to extended custodial interrogation. 442 U. S., at 203, 206-207, 212. Here, Royer was not taken from a private residence, where reasonable expectations of privacy perhaps are at their greatest. Instead, he was approached in a major international airport where, due in part to extensive antihijacking surveillance and equipment, reasonable privacy expectations are of significantly lesser magnitude, certainly no greater than the reasonable privacy expectations of travelers in automobiles. See United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 561. As in the automobile stop cases, and indeed as in every case in which the Court has upheld seizures upon reasonable suspicion, Royer was questioned where he was found, and all *516questions were directly related to the purpose of the stop. Thus, the officers asked about Royer’s identity, the purposes of his travel, and the suspicious circumstances they had noted. As the plurality appears to concede, ante, at 502, probable cause was certainly not required at this point, and the officers’ conduct was fully supported by reasonable suspicion.

What followed was within the scope of the lesser intrusions approved on less than probable cause in our prior cases, and was far removed from the circumstances of Dunaway. In the context of automobile stops, the Court has held that an officer “may question the driver and passengers about their citizenship and immigration status, and he may ask them to explain suspicious circumstances, but any further detention or search must be based on consent or probable cause.” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 881-882, quoted with approval in Dunaway, 442 U. S., at 212. Here, Royer was not subjected to custodial interrogation, for which probable cause is required. Dunaway, 442 U. S., at 216. Instead, the officers first sought Royer’s consent to move the detention 40 feet to the police room, and then sought his consent to search his luggage. The question is whether, as in Dunaway, the move was involuntary, in which case probable cause might have been required, or whether, as in Mendenhall, 446 U. S., at 557-558, Royer consented voluntarily to this change of locale. Like Justice Rehnquist, post, at 530-531, I do not understand the plurality to dispute that Royer consented to go to the police room. Because the detention up to this point was not unlawful, the voluntariness of Royer’s consent is to be judged on the totality of the circumstances. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 227 (1973). As in Mendenhall, 446 U. S., at 557, quoting Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 63 (1968), Royer went “‘voluntarily in a spirit of apparent cooperation.’”1

*517Had Royer initially refused to consent to the search of his suitcases, and had the officers continued the detention in the hope that he would change his mind, a situation much closer to Dunaway would have been presented. But once he was in the room,2 Royer consented to the search immediately upon request. Neither the plurality nor the Florida Court of Appeal suggests that, judged on the totality of the circumstances, Royer’s consent to the search was involuntary.

*518Thus, the officers in this case followed the formula for “lesser intrusions” set forth in Brignoni-Ponce and approved in Dunaway: beyond the initial stop and properly limited questioning, further detention and search were based on Royer’s consent. Certainly, the intrusion on Royer’s privacy was not so extreme as to make the countervailing public interest in greater flexibility irrelevant to the question whether probable cause was required. Consequently, I do not understand why the plurality fails to balance the character of the detention and the degree to which it intruded upon Royer’s privacy against its justification as measured by “both the law enforcement interest and the nature of the ‘articula-ble facts’ supporting the detention.” Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S., at 702. This balance should determine whether probable cause or reasonable suspicion was required to support the officers’ conduct, and whether that conduct was lawful under the appropriate standard.

I — I HH

The officers in this case began their encounter with Royer with reasonable suspicion. They continued their questioning and requested further cooperation only as more facts, heightening their suspicion, came to their attention. Certainly, as any such detention continues or escalates, a greater degree of reasonable suspicion is necessary to sustain it, and at some point probable cause will be required. But here, the intrusion was short-lived and minimal. Only 15 minutes transpired from the initial approach to the opening of the suitcases. The officers were polite, and sought and immediately obtained Royer’s consent at each significant step of the process.3 Royer knew that if the search of the suitcases did not *519turn up contraband, he would be free to go on his way.4 Thus, it seems clear to me that “ ‘the police [were] diligently pursuing a means of investigation which [was] likely to resolve the matter one way or another very soon . . . Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S., at 701, n. 14, quoting 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §9.2, p. 40 (1978).5

The special need for flexibility in uncovering illicit drug couriers is hardly debatable. Surely the problem is as serious, and as intractable, as the problem of illegal immigration discussed in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S., at 878-879, and in United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S., at 552. In light of the extraordinary and well-documented difficulty of identifying drug couriers, the minimal intrusion in this case, based on particularized suspicion, was eminently reasonable.

I dissent.

Justice Rehnquist,

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.

The plurality’s meandering opinion contains in it a little something for everyone, and although it affirms the reversal of a judgment of conviction, it can scarcely be said to bespeak *520a total indifference to the legitimate needs of law enforcement agents seeking to curb trafficking in dangerous drugs. Indeed, in both manner and tone, the opinion brings to mind the old nursery rhyme:

“The King of France With forty thousand men Marched up the hill And then marched back again.”

The opinion nonetheless, in my view, betrays a mind-set more useful to those who officiate at shuffleboard games, primarily concerned with which particular square the disc has landed on, than to those who are seeking to administer a system of justice whose twin purposes are the conviction of the guilty and the vindication of the innocent. The plurality loses sight of the very language of the Amendment which it purports to interpret:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” (Emphasis added.)

Analyzed simply in terms of its “reasonableness” as that term is used in the Fourth Amendment, the conduct of the investigating officers toward Royer would pass muster with virtually all thoughtful, civilized persons not overly steeped in the mysteries of this Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Analyzed even in terms of the most meticulous regard for our often conflicting cases, it seems to me to pass muster equally well.

The facts of this case, which are doubtless typical of those facing narcotics officers in major airports throughout the country, may be usefully stated in a somewhat different manner than that followed in the opinion of the plurality. Officers Magdalena and Johnson, members of the “Smuggling Detail” of the Dade County Public Safety Department created in response to a growing drug problem at the Miami Air*521port, were on duty at that airport on January 3, 1978. Since this is one of the peak periods of the tourist season in south Florida and the Caribbean, we may presumably take judicial notice that the airport was in all probability very crowded and busy at that time.

The detectives first saw Royer walking through the airport concourse. He was a young man, casually dressed, carrying two heavily laden suitcases. The officers described him as nervous in appearance, and looking around in a manner which suggested that he was trying to detect and avoid police officers. Before they approached him, the officers followed Royer to a ticket counter. He there requested a ticket for New York City, and in paying for it produced a large roll of cash in small denomination bills from which he peeled off the necessary amount. He then affixed two baggage tags to his luggage and checked it. Rather than filling out his full name, address, and phone number in the spaces provided on the tags, Royer merely wrote the words “Holt” and “La Guardia” on each tag.

At this point, the officers approached Royer, identified themselves, and asked if he had a moment to talk. He answered affirmatively, and the detectives then asked to see his airline ticket and some identification.1 Although his ticket was for the name “Holt,” his driver’s license was in the name of “Mark Royer.” When asked to explain this discrepancy, he said that a friend named Holt had made the ticket reservation. This explanation, of course, did not account for his use of the name “Holt” on the baggage tags that he had just filled out.

By this time Royer had become all the more obviously nervous. The detectives told Royer that they suspected he was transporting narcotics, and asked if he would accompany *522them for further questioning to a room adjacent to the concourse “to get out of the general population of the Airport.” 389 So. 2d 1007, 1017 (Fla. App. 1980) (en banc). Royer agreed to go. The room was no more than 40 feet from the place where the detectives first approached Royer; it was described in the testimony of one of the officers as a “large storage closet” off a stewardesses’ lounge converted into a room used by the Smuggling Detail, ibid,.; the room contained a desk and two chairs. At this time the detectives also, without Royer’s consent, retrieved Royer’s suitcases from the place where they had been checked through on the flight to New York and brought them to the room off the concourse.

Once inside, the detectives asked Royer if he would consent to a search of the luggage so that they could dispel or confirm their suspicion that he was smuggling narcotics. The plurality’s opinion describes what then happened:

“Without orally responding to this request, Royer produced a key and unlocked one of the suitcases, which the detective then opened without seeking further assent from Royer. Marihuana was found in that suitcase. According to Detective Johnson, Royer stated that he did not know the combination to the lock on the second suitcase. When asked if he objected to the detective opening the second suitcase, Royer said, ‘no, go ahead,’ and did not object when the detective explained that the suitcase might have to be broken open. The suitcase was pried open by the officers and more marihuana was found. Royer was then told that he was under arrest. Approximately 15 minutes had elapsed from the time the detectives initially approached respondent until his arrest upon the discovery of the contraband.” Ante, at 494-495.2

*523The plurality inferentially concedes, as of course it must, that at the time the suitcases were opened and 65 pounds of marihuana were disclosed, the officers had probable cause to arrest and detain Royer. But working backward through this very brief encounter, the plurality manages to sufficiently fault the officers’ conduct so as to require that Royer’s conviction for smuggling drugs be set aside. Analyzed in terms of the “reasonableness” which must attend any search and seizure under the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, I find it impossible to conclude that any step in the officers’ efforts to apprehend Royer fails to meet that test.

The plurality concedes that after their initial conversation with Royer, the officers had “grounds for suspecting Royer of carrying drugs and for temporarily detaining him and his luggage while they attempted to verify or dispel their suspicions . . . .” Ante, at 502. See also Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 697-700 (1981); Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 146 (1972); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 20-21 (1968). I agree that their information reached at least this level.3 The detectives had learned, among other things, that (1) Royer was carrying two heavy suitcases; (2) he was visibly nervous, exhibiting the behavior of a person trying to iden*524tify and evade police officers; (3) at a ticket counter in a major import center for illicit drugs, he had purchased a ticket for a city that is a major distribution center for such drugs; (4) he paid for his ticket from a large roll of small denomination bills, avoiding the need to show identification; (5) in filling out his baggage tags, Royer listed only a last name and the airport of destination, failing to give his full name, address, and phone number in the provided spaces, and (6) he was traveling under an assumed name.4

The Florida court felt that even these facts did not amount to articulable suspicion, reasoning that this behavior was “at least equally, and usually far more frequently, consistent with complete innocence.”5 389 So. 2d, at 1016. This eval*525uation of the evidence seems to me singularly akin to observing that because a stranger who was loitering near a building shortly before an arsonist set fire to the building could not be detained against his will for questioning solely on the basis of that fact, the same conclusion would be reached even though the same stranger had been found loitering in the presence of four other buildings shortly before arsonists had likewise set them on fire. Any one of these factors relied upon by the Miami police may have been as consistent with innocence as with guilt; but the combination of several of these factors is the essence of both “articulable suspicion” and “probable cause.”6

*526The point at which I part company with the plurality’s opinion is in the assessment of the reasonableness of the officers’ conduct following their initial conversation with Royer. *527The plurality focuses on the transfer of the place of the interview from the main concourse of the airport to the room off the concourse and observes that Royer “found himself in a small room — a large closet — equipped with a desk and two chairs. He was alone with two police officers who again told him that they thought he was carrying narcotics. He also found that the officers, without his consent, had retrieved his checked luggage from the airline.” Ante, at 502-503.

Obviously, this quoted language is intended to convey stern disapproval of the described conduct of the officers. To my mind, it merits no such disapproval and was eminently reasonable. Would it have been preferable for the officers to have detained Royer for further questioning, as they conced-edly had a right to do, without paying any attention to the fact that his luggage had already been checked on the flight to New York, and might be put aboard the flight even though Royer himself was not on the plane? Would it have been more “reasonable” to interrogate Royer about the contents of his suitcases, and to seek his permission to open the suitcases *528when they were retrieved, in the busy main concourse of the Miami Airport, rather than to find a room off the concourse where the confrontation would surely be less embarrassing to Royer? If the room had been large and spacious, rather than small, if it had possessed three chairs rather than two, would the officers’ conduct have been made reasonable by these facts?

The plurality’s answers to these questions, to the extent that it attempts any, are scarcely satisfying. It commences with the observation that “the officers’ conduct was more intrusive than necessary to effectuate an investigative detention otherwise authorized by the Terry line of cases.” Ante, at 504. Earlier in its opinion, the plurality set the stage for this standard when the familiar “least intrusive means” principle of First Amendment law is suddenly carried over into Fourth Amendment law by the citation of two cases, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 881-882 (1975), and Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S., at 146, see ante, at 500, neither one of which lends any support to the principle as a part of Fourth Amendment law. The plurality goes on to say that had the officers returned Royer’s ticket and driver’s license, the encounter clearly would have been consensual. The plurality also states that while there were good reasons to justify moving Royer from one location to another, the officers’ motives in seeking to examine his luggage render these reasons unavailing — a conclusion the reason for which wholly escapes me. Finally, the plurality suggests that the officers might have examined Royer’s bags in a more expeditious way, such as the use of trained dogs.

All of this to my mind adds up to little more than saying that if my aunt were a man, she would be my uncle. The officers might have taken different steps than they did to investigate Royer, but the same may be said of virtually every investigative encounter that has more than one step to it. The question we must decide is what was unreasonable about the steps which these officers took with respect to this sus*529pect in the Miami Airport on this particular day. On this point, the plurality stutters, fudges, and hedges:

“What had begun as a consensual inquiry in a public place had escalated into an investigatory procedure in a police interrogation room, where the police, unsatisfied with previous explanations, sought to confirm their suspicions.” Ante, at 503.

But since even the plurality concedes that there was articula-ble suspicion warranting an investigatory detention, the fact that the inquiry had become an “investigatory procedure in a police interrogation room” would seem to have little bearing on the proper disposition of a claim that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment. The plurality goes on to say:

“At least as of that moment, any consensual aspects of the encounter had evaporated, and we cannot fault the Florida District Court of Appeal in concluding that Terry v. Ohio and the cases following it did not justify the restraint to which Royer was then subjected. As a practical matter, Royer was under arrest.” Ibid.

Does the plurality intimate that if the Florida District Court of Appeal had reached the opposite conclusion with respect to the holdings of Terry and the cases which follow it, it would affirm that holding?7 Does it mean that the 15-minute duration of the total encounter, and the even lesser amount of elapsed time during which Royer was in the “interrogation room,” was more than a Terry investigative stop can ever consume? These possible conclusions are adumbrated, but not stated; if the plurality’s opinion were to be *530judged by standards appropriate to Impressionist paintings, it would perhaps receive a high grade, but the same cannot be said if it is to be judged by the standards of a judicial opinion.

Since the plurality concedes the existence of “articulable suspicion” at least after the initial conversation with Royer, the only remaining question is whether the detention of Royer during that period of time was permissible under the rule enunciated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968). Although Terry itself involved only a protective patdown for weapons, subsequent cases have expanded the permissible scope of such a “seizure.” In Adams v. Williams, supra, we upheld both a search and seizure of a pistol being carried by a suspect seated in a parked automobile. In United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543 (1976), we allowed Government officials to stop, and divert for visual inspection and questioning, automobiles which were suspected of harboring illegal aliens. These stops, including waiting time, could clearly have approximated in length the time which Royer was detained, and yet Martinez-Fuerte allowed them to be made “in the absense of any individualized suspicion at reasonably located checkpoints.” Id., at 562 (emphasis supplied). Unless we are to say that commercial drug trafficking is somehow quantitatively less weighty on the Fourth Amendment scale than trafficking in illegal aliens, I think the articulable suspicion which concededly focused upon Royer justified the length and nature of his detention.8

The reasonableness of the officers’ activity in this case did not depend on Royer’s consent to the investigation. Nevertheless, the presence of consent further justifies the action taken. The plurality does not seem to dispute that Royer *531consented to go to the room in the first instance. Certainly that conclusion is warranted by the totality of the circumstances. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 227 (1973). The facts are similar to those addressed in United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980), where a majority of the Court determined that the consent to accompany police officers had been voluntary. Royer was not told that he had to go to the room, but was simply asked, after a brief period of questioning, if he would accompany the detectives to the room. Royer was informed as to why the officers wished to question him further. There were neither threats nor any show of force. Detectives Johnson and Magdelena were not in uniform and did not display weapons. The detectives did not touch Royer and made no demands. In fact, Royer admits that the detectives were quite polite.9

The plurality concludes that somewhere between the beginning of the 40-foot journey and the resumption of conversation in the room the investigation became so intrusive that Royer’s consent “evaporated” leaving him “[a]s a practical matter . . . under arrest.” Ante, at 503. But if Royer was legally approached in the first instance and consented to accompany the detectives to the room, it does not follow that his consent went up in smoke and he was “arrested” upon entering the room. As we made clear in Mendenhall, logical analysis would focus on whether the environment in the room rendered the subsequent consent to a search of the luggage involuntary.

*532As we said in Mendenhall, “the fact that she was [in the room] is little or no evidence that she was in any way coerced.” 446 U. S., at 559. Other than the size of the room, described as “a large storage closet,”10 there is nothing in the record which would indicate that Royer’s resistance was overborne by anything about the room. Royer, who was in his fourth year of study at Ithaca College at the time and has since graduated with a degree in communications, simply continued to cooperate with the detectives as he had from the beginning of the encounter. Absent any evidence of objective indicia of coercion, and even absent any claim of such in-dicia by Royer, the size of the room itself does not transform a voluntary consent to search into a coerced consent.

For any of these several reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the Florida District Court of Appeal.

Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case requires us to determine the constitutionality of the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon. We conclude that such force may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.

I

At about 10:45 p. m. on October 3, 1974, Memphis Police Officers Elton Hymon and Leslie Wright were dispatched to answer a “prowler inside call.” Upon arriving at the scene they saw a woman standing on her porch and gesturing toward the adjacent house.1 She told them she had heard glass breaking and that “they” or “someone” was breaking in next door. While Wright radioed the dispatcher to say that they were on the scene, Hymon went behind the house. He heard a door slam and saw someone run across the backyard. The fleeing suspect, who was appellee-respondent’s decedent, Edward Garner, stopped at a 6-feet-high chain link fence at the edge of the yard. With the aid of a flashlight, Hymon was able to see Garner’s face and hands. He saw no sign of a weapon, and, though not certain, was “reasonably sure” and “figured” that Garner was unarmed. App. 41, 56; Record 219. He thought Garner was 17 or 18 years old and *4about 5' 5" or 5' 7" tall.2 While Garner was crouched at the base of the fence, Hymon called out “police, halt” and took a few steps toward him. Garner then began to climb over the fence. Convinced that if Garner made it over the fence he would elude capture,3 Hymon shot him. The bullet hit Garner in the back of the head. Garner was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died on the operating table. Ten dollars and a purse taken from the house were found on his body.4

In using deadly force to prevent the escape, Hymon was acting under the authority of a Tennessee statute and pursuant to Police Department policy. The statute provides that “[i]f, after notice of the intention to arrest the defendant, he either flee or forcibly resist, the officer may use all the necessary means to effect the arrest.” Tenn. Code Ann. *5§40-7-108 (1982).5 The Department policy was slightly more restrictive than the statute, but still allowed the use of deadly force in cases of burglary. App. 140-144. The incident was reviewed by the Memphis Police Firearm’s Review Board and presented to a grand jury. Neither took any action. Id., at 57.

Garner’s father then brought this action in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, seeking damages under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for asserted violations of Garner’s constitutional rights. The complaint alleged that the shooting violated the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. It named as defendants Officer Hymon, the Police Department, its Director, and the Mayor and city of Memphis. After a 3-day bench trial, the District Court entered judgment for all defendants. It dismissed the claims against the Mayor and the Director for lack of evidence. It then concluded that Hymon’s actions were authorized by the Tennessee statute, which in turn was constitutional. Hymon had employed the only reasonable and practicable means of preventing Garner’s escape. Garner had “recklessly and heedlessly attempted to vault over the fence to escape, thereby assuming the risk of being fired upon.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A10.

The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed with regard to Hymon, finding that he had acted in good-faith reliance on the Tennessee statute and was therefore within the scope of his qualified immunity. 600 F. 2d 52 (1979). It remanded for reconsideration of the possible liability of the city, however, in light of Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), which had come down after the District Court’s decision. The District Court was *6directed to consider whether a city enjoyed a qualified immunity, whether the use of deadly force and hollow point bullets in these circumstances was constitutional, and whether any unconstitutional municipal conduct flowed from a “policy or custom” as required for liability under Monell. 600 F. 2d, at 54-55.

The District Court concluded that Monell did not affect its decision. While acknowledging some doubt as to the possible immunity of the city, it found that the statute, and Hymon’s actions, were constitutional. Given this conclusion, it declined to consider the “policy or custom” question. App. to Pet. for Cert. A37-A39.

The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. 710 F. 2d 240 (1983). It reasoned that the killing of a fleeing suspect is a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment,6 and is therefore constitutional only if “reasonable.” The Tennessee statute failed as applied to this case because it did not adequately limit the use of deadly force by distinguishing between felonies of different magnitudes — “the facts, as found, did not justify the use of deadly force under the Fourth Amendment.” Id., at 246. Officers cannot resort to deadly force unless they “have probable cause ... to believe that the suspect [has committed a felony and] poses a threat to the safety of the officers or a danger to the community if left at large.” Ibid.7

*7The State of Tennessee, which had intervened to defend the statute, see 28 U. S. C. § 2403(b), appealed to this Court. The city filed a petition for certiorari. We noted probable jurisdiction in the appeal and granted the petition. 465 U. S. 1098 (1984).

II

Whenever an officer restrains the freedom of a person to walk away, he has seized that person. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878 (1975). While it is not always clear just when minimal police interference becomes a seizure, see United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544 (1980), there can be no question that apprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment.

A

A police officer may arrest a person if he has probable cause to believe that person committed a crime. E. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976). Petitioners and appellant argue that if this requirement is satisfied the Fourth Amendment has nothing to say about how that seizure is made. This submission ignores the many cases in which this Court, by balancing the extent of the intrusion against the need for it, has examined the reasonableness of *8the manner in which a search or seizure is conducted. To determine the constitutionality of a seizure “[w]e must balance the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.” United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 703 (1983); see Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (1979); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 555 (1976). We have described “the balancing of competing interests” as “the key principle of the Fourth Amendment.” Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 700, n. 12 (1981). See also Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 536-537 (1967). Because one of the factors is the extent of the intrusion, it is plain that reasonableness depends on not only when a seizure is made, but also how it is carried out. United States v. Ortiz, 422 U. S. 891, 895 (1975); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 28-29 (1968).

Applying these principles to particular facts, the Court has held that governmental interests did not support a lengthy detention of luggage, United States v. Place, supra, an airport seizure not “carefully tailored to its underlying justification,” Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 500 (1983) (plurality-opinion), surgery under general anesthesia to obtain evidence, Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753 (1985), or detention for fingerprinting without probable cause, Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969); Hayes v. Florida, 470 U. S. 811 (1985). On the other hand, under the same approach it has upheld the taking of fingernail scrapings from a suspect, Cupp v. Murphy, 412 U. S. 291 (1973), an unannounced entry into a home to prevent the destruction of evidence, Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23 (1963), administrative housing inspections without probable cause to believe that a code violation will be found, Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, and a blood test of a drunken-driving suspect, Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966). In each of these cases, the question was whether *9the totality of the circumstances justified a particular sort of search or seizure.

B

The same balancing process applied in the cases cited above demonstrates that, notwithstanding probable cause to seize a suspect, an officer may not always do so by killing him. The intrusiveness of a seizure by means of deadly force is unmatched. The suspect’s fundamental interest in his own life need not be elaborated upon. The use of deadly force also frustrates the interest of the individual, and of society, in judicial determination of guilt and punishment. Against these interests are ranged governmental interests in effective law enforcement.8 It is argued that overall violence will be reduced by encouraging the peaceful submission of suspects who know that they may be shot if they flee. Effectiveness in making arrests requires the resort to deadly *10force, or at least the meaningful threat thereof. “Being able to arrest such individuals is a condition precedent to the state’s entire system of law enforcement.” Brief for Petitioners 14.

Without in any way disparaging the importance of these goals, we are not convinced that the use of deadly force is a sufficiently productive means of accomplishing them to justify the killing of nonviolent suspects. Cf. Delaware v. Prouse, supra, at 659. The use of deadly force is a self-defeating way of apprehending a suspect and so setting the criminal justice mechanism in motion. If successful, it guarantees that that mechanism will not be set in motion. And while the meaningful threat of deadly force might be thought to lead to the arrest of more live suspects by discouraging escape attempts,9 the presently available evidence does not support this thesis.10 The fact is that a majority of police de*11partments in this country have forbidden the use of deadly force against nonviolent suspects. See infra, at 18-19. If those charged with the enforcement of the criminal law have abjured the use of deadly force in arresting nondangerous felons, there is a substantial basis for doubting that the use of such force is an essential attribute of the arrest power in all felony cases. See Schumann v. McGinn, 307 Minn. 446, 472, 240 N. W. 2d 525, 540 (1976) (Rogosheske, J., dissenting in part). Petitioners and appellant have not persuaded us that shooting nondangerous fleeing suspects is so vital as to outweigh the suspect’s interest in his own life.

The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable. It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. It is no doubt unfortunate when a suspect who is in sight escapes, but the fact that the police arrive a little late or are a little slower afoot does not always justify killing the suspect. A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead. The Tennessee statute is unconstitutional insofar as it authorizes the use of deadly force against such fleeing suspects.

It is not, however, unconstitutional on its face. Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. Thus, if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where *12feasible, some warning has been given. As applied in such circumstances, the Tennessee statute would pass constitutional muster.

Ill

A

It is insisted that the Fourth Amendment must be construed in light of the common-law rule, which allowed the use of whatever force was necessary to effect the arrest of a fleeing felon, though not a misdemeanant. As stated in Hale’s posthumously published Pleas of the Crown:

“[I]f persons that are pursued by these officers for felony or the just suspicion thereof . . . shall not yield themselves to these officers, but shall either resist or fly before they are apprehended or being apprehended shall rescue themselves and resist or fly, so that they cannot be otherwise apprehended, and are upon necessity slain therein, because they cannot be otherwise taken, it is no felony.” 2 M. Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae 85 (1736).

See also 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *289. Most American jurisdictions also imposed a flat prohibition against the use of deadly force to stop a fleeing misdemeanant, coupled with a general privilege to use such force to stop a fleeing felon. E. g., Holloway v. Moser, 193 N. C. 185, 136 S. E. 375 (1927); State v. Smith, 127 Iowa 534, 535, 103 N. W. 944, 945 (1905); Reneau v. State, 70 Tenn. 720 (1879); Brooks v. Commonwealth, 61 Pa. 352 (1869); Roberts v. State, 14 Mo. 138 (1851); see generally R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 1098-1102 (3d ed. 1982); Day, Shooting the Fleeing Felon: State of the Law, 14 Crim. L. Bull. 285, 286-287 (1978); Wilgus, Arrest Without a Warrant, 22 Mich. L. Rev. 798, 807-816 (1924). But see Storey v. State, 71 Ala. 329 (1882); State v. Bryant, 65 N. C. 327, 328 (1871); Caldwell v. State, 41 Tex. 86 (1874).

*13The State and city argue that because this was the prevailing rule at the time of the adoption of the Fourth Amendment and for some time thereafter, and is still in force in some States, use of deadly force against a fleeing felon must be “reasonable.” It is true that this Court has often looked to the common law in evaluating the reasonableness, for Fourth Amendment purposes, of police activity. See, e. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 418-419 (1976); Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103, 111, 114 (1975); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149-153 (1925). On the other hand, it “has not simply frozen into constitutional law those law enforcement practices that existed at the time of the Fourth Amendment’s passage.” Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 591, n. 33 (1980). Because of sweeping change in the legal and technological context, reliance on the common-law rule in this case would be a mistaken literalism that ignores the purposes of a historical inquiry.

B

It has been pointed out many times that the common-law rule is best understood in light of the fact that it arose at a time when virtually all felonies were punishable by death.11 “Though effected without the protections and formalities of an orderly trial and conviction, the killing of a resisting or *14fleeing felon resulted in no greater consequences than those authorized for punishment of the felony of which the individual was charged or suspected.” American Law Institute, Model Penal Code §3.07, Comment 3, p. 56 (Tentative Draft No. 8, 1958) (hereinafter Model Penal Code Comment). Courts have also justified the common-law rule by emphasizing the relative dangerousness of felons. See, e. g., Schumann v. McGinn, 307 Minn., at 458, 240 N. W. 2d, at 533; Holloway v. Moser, supra, at 187, 136 S. E., at 376 (1927).

Neither of these justifications makes sense today. Almost all crimes formerly punishable by death no longer are or can be. See, e. g., Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982); Coker v. Georgia, 433 U. S. 584 (1977). And while in earlier times “the gulf between the felonies and the minor offences was broad and deep,” 2 Pollock & Maitland 467, n. 3; Carroll v. United States, supra, at 158, today the distinction is minor and often arbitrary. Many crimes classified as misdemeanors, or nonexistent, at common law are now felonies. Wilgus, 22 Mich. L. Rev., at 572-573. These changes have undermined the concept, which was questionable to begin with, that use of deadly force against a fleeing felon is merely a speedier execution of someone who has already forfeited his life. They have also made the assumption that a “felon” is more dangerous than a misdemeanant untenable. Indeed, numerous misdemeanors involve conduct more dangerous than many felonies.12

There is an additional reason why the common-law rule cannot be directly translated to the present day. The common-law rule developed at a time when weapons were rudimentary. Deadly force could be inflicted almost solely in a hand-to-hand struggle during which, necessarily, the safety *15of the arresting officer was at risk. Handguns were not carried by police officers until the latter half of the last century. L. Kennett & J. Anderson, The Gun in America 150-151 (1975). Only then did it become possible to use deadly force from a distance as a means of apprehension. As a practical matter, the use of deadly force under the standard articulation of the common-law rule has an altogether different meaning — and harsher consequences — now than in past centuries. See Wechsler & Michael, A Rationale for the Law of Homicide: I, 37 Colum. L. Rev. 701, 741 (1937).13

One other aspect of the common-law rule bears emphasis. It forbids the use of deadly force to apprehend a misde-meanant, condemning such action as disproportionately severe. See Holloway v. Moser, 193 N. C., at 187, 136 S. E., at 376; State v. Smith, 127 Iowa, at 535, 103 N. W., at 945. See generally Annot., 83 A. L. R. 3d 238 (1978).

In short, though the common-law pedigree of Tennessee’s rule is pure on its face, changes in the legal and technological context mean the rule is distorted almost beyond recognition when literally applied.

C

In evaluating the reasonableness of police procedures under the Fourth Amendment, we have also looked to pre*16vailing rules in individual jurisdictions. See, e. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S., at 421-422. The rules in the States are varied. See generally Comment, 18 Ga. L. Rev. 137, 140-144 (1983). Some 19 States have codified the common-law rule,14 though in two of these the courts have significantly limited the statute.15 Four States, though without a relevant statute, apparently retain the common-law rule.16 Two States have adopted the Model Penal Code’s *17provision verbatim.17 Eighteen others allow, in slightly varying language, the use of deadly force only if the suspect has committed a felony involving the use or threat of physical or deadly force, or is escaping with a deadly weapon, or is likely to endanger life or inflict serious physical injury if not arrested.18 Louisiana and Vermont, though without statutes or case law on point, do forbid the use of deadly force to prevent any but violent felonies.19 The remaining States either have no relevant statute or case law, or have positions that are unclear.20

*18It cannot be said that there is a constant or overwhelming trend away from the common-law rule. In recent years, some States have reviewed their laws and expressly rejected abandonment of the common-law rule.21 Nonetheless, the long-term movement has been away from the rule that deadly force may be used against any fleeing felon, and that remains the rule in less than half the States.

This trend is more evident and impressive when viewed in light of the policies adopted by the police departments themselves. Overwhelmingly, these are more restrictive than the common-law rule. C. Milton, J. Halleck, J. Lardner, & G. Abrecht, Police Use of Deadly Force 45-46 (1977). The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department, for example, both forbid the use of firearms except when necessary to prevent death or grievous bodily harm. Id., at 40-41; App. 88. For accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a department must restrict the use of deadly force to situations where “the officer reasonably believes that the action is in defense of human life ... or in defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.” Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc., Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies 1-2 (1983) (italics deleted). A 1974 study reported that the police department regulations in a majority of the large cities of the United States allowed the firing of a weapon only when a *19felon presented a threat of death or serious bodily harm. Boston Police Department, Planning & Research Division, The Use of Deadly Force by Boston Police Personnel (1974), cited in Mattis v. Schnarr, 547 F. 2d 1007, 1016, n. 19 (CA8 1976), vacated as moot sub nom. Ashcroft v. Mattis, 431 U. S. 171 (1977). Overall, only 7.5% of departmental and municipal policies explicitly permit the use of deadly force against any felon; 86.8% explicitly do not. K. Matulia, A Balance of Forces: A Report of the International Association of Chiefs of Police 161 (1982) (table). See also Record 1108-1368 (written policies of 44 departments). See generally W. Geller & K. Karales, Split-Second Decisions 33-42 (1981); Brief for Police Foundation et al. as Amici Curiae. In light of the rules adopted by those who must actually administer them, the older and fading common-law view is a dubious indicium of the constitutionality of the Tennessee statute now before us.

D

Actual departmental policies are important for an additional reason. We would hesitate to declare a police practice of long standing “unreasonable” if doing so would severely hamper effective law enforcement. But the indications are to the contrary. There has been no suggestion that crime has worsened in any way in jurisdictions that have adopted, by legislation or departmental policy, rules similar to that announced today. Amici note that “[a]fter extensive research and consideration, [they] have concluded that laws permitting police officers to use deadly force to apprehend unarmed, non-violent fleeing felony suspects actually do not protect citizens or law enforcement officers, do not deter crime or alleviate problems caused by crime, and do not improve the crime-fighting ability of law enforcement agencies.” Id., at 11. The submission is that the obvious state interests in apprehension are not sufficiently served to warrant the use of lethal weapons against all fleeing felons. See supra, at 10-11, and n. 10.

*20Nor do we agree with petitioners and appellant that the rule we have adopted requires the police to make impossible, split-second evaluations of unknowable facts. See Brief for Petitioners 25; Brief for Appellant 11. We do not deny the practical difficulties of attempting to assess the suspect’s dangerousness. However, similarly difficult judgments must be made by the police in equally uncertain circumstances. See, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 20, 27. Nor is there any indication that in States that allow the use of deadly force only against dangerous suspects, see nn. 15, 17-19, supra, the standard has been difficult to apply or has led to a rash of litigation involving inappropriate second-guessing of police officers’ split-second decisions. Moreover, the highly technical felony/misdemeanor distinction is equally, if not more, difficult to apply in the field. An officer is in no position to know, for example, the precise value of property stolen, or whether the crime was a first or second offense. Finally, as noted above, this claim must be viewed with suspicion in light of the similar self-imposed limitations of so many police departments.

IV

The District Court concluded that Hymon was justified in shooting Garner because state law allows, and the Federal Constitution does not forbid, the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing felony suspect if no alternative means of apprehension is available. See App. to Pet. for Cert. A9-A11, A38. This conclusion made a determination of Garner’s apparent dangerousness unnecessary. The court did find, however, that Garner appeared to be unarmed, though Hymon could not be certain that was the case. Id., at A4, A23. See also App. 41, 56; Record 219. Restated in Fourth Amendment terms, this means Hymon had no articu-lable basis to think Garner was armed.

In reversing, the Court of Appeals accepted the District Court’s factual conclusions and held that “the facts, as found, did not justify the use of deadly force.” 710 F. 2d, at 246. *21We agree. Officer Hymon could not reasonably have believed that Garner — young, slight, and unarmed — posed any threat. Indeed, Hymon never attempted to justify his actions on any basis other than the need to prevent an escape. The District Court stated in passing that “[t]he facts of this case did not indicate to Officer Hymon that Garner was ‘non-danger ous.’ ” App. to Pet. for Cert. A34. This conclusion is not explained, and seems to be based solely on the fact that Garner had broken into a house at night. However, the fact that Garner was a suspected burglar could not, without regard to the other circumstances, automatically justify the use of deadly force. Hymon did not have probable cause to believe that Garner, whom he correctly believed to be unarmed, posed any physical danger to himself or others.

The dissent argues that the shooting was justified by the fact that Officer Hymon had probable cause to believe that Garner had committed a nighttime burglary. Post, at 29, 32. While we agree that burglary is a serious crime, we cannot agree that it is so dangerous as automatically to justify the use of deadly force. The FBI classifies burglary as a “property” rather than a “violent” crime. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, Crime in the United States 1 (1984).22 Although the armed burglar would present a different situation, the fact that an unarmed suspect has broken into a dwelling at night does not automatically mean he is physically dangerous. This case demonstrates as much. See also Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 296-297, and nn. 22-23 (1983). In fact, the available statistics demonstrate that burglaries only rarely involve physical violence. During the 10-year period from 1973-1982, only 3.8% of all burglaries involved violent crime. Bureau of Justice Statistics, House*22hold Burglary 4 (1985).23 See also T. Reppetto, Residential Crime 17, 105 (1974); Conklin & Bittner, Burglary in a Suburb, 11 Criminology 208, 214 (1973).

V

We wish to make clear what our holding means in the context of this case. The complaint has been dismissed as to all the individual defendants. The State is a party only by virtue of 28 U. S. C. § 2403(b) and is not subject to liability. The possible liability of the remaining defendants — the Police Department and the city of Memphis — hinges on Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658 (1978), and is left for remand. We hold that the statute is invalid insofar as it purported to give Hymon the authority to act as he did. As for the policy of the Police Department, the absence of any discussion of this issue by the courts below, and the uncertain state of the record, preclude any consideration of its validity.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

Justice O’Connor,

with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Rehnquist join, dissenting.

The Court today holds that the Fourth Amendment prohibits a police officer from using deadly force as a last resort to *23apprehend a criminal suspect who refuses to halt when fleeing the scene of a nighttime burglary. This conclusion rests on the majority’s balancing of the interests of the suspect and the public interest in effective law enforcement. Ante, at 8. Notwithstanding the venerable common-law rule authorizing the use of deadly force if necessary to apprehend a fleeing felon, and continued acceptance of this rule by nearly half the States, ante, at 14, 16-17, the majority concludes that Tennessee’s statute is unconstitutional inasmuch as it allows the use of such force to apprehend a burglary suspect who is not obviously armed or otherwise dangerous. Although the circumstances of this case are unquestionably tragic and unfortunate, our constitutional holdings must be sensitive both to the history of the Fourth Amendment and to the general implications of the Court’s reasoning. By disregarding the serious and dangerous nature of residential burglaries and the longstanding practice of many States, the Court effectively creates a Fourth Amendment right allowing a burglary suspect to flee unimpeded from a police officer who has probable cause to arrest, who has ordered the suspect to halt, and who has no means short of firing his weapon to prevent escape. I do not believe that the Fourth Amendment supports such a right, and I accordingly dissent.

I-H

The facts below warrant brief review because they highlight the difficult, split-second decisions police officers must make in these circumstances. Memphis Police Officers Elton Hymon and Leslie Wright responded to a late-night call that a burglary was in progress at a private residence. When the officers arrived at the scene, the callér said that “they” were breaking into the house next door. App. in No. 81-5605 (CA6), p. 207. The officers found the residence had been forcibly entered through a window and saw lights *24on inside the house. Officer Hymon testified that when he saw the broken window he realized “that something was wrong inside,” id., at 656, but that he could not determine whether anyone — either a burglar or a member of the household — was within the residence. Id., at 209. As Officer Hymon walked behind the house, he heard a door slam. He saw Edward Eugene Garner run away from the house through the dark and cluttered backyard. Garner crouched next to a 6-foot-high fence. Officer Hymon thought Garner was an adult and was unsure whether Garner was armed because Hymon “had no idea what was in the hand [that he could not see] or what he might have had on his person.” Id., at 658-659. In fact, Garner was 15 years old and unarmed. Hymon also did not know whether accomplices remained inside the house. Id., at 657. The officer identified himself as a police officer and ordered Garner to halt. Garner paused briefly and then sprang to the top of the fence. Believing that Garner would escape if he climbed over the fence, Hymon fired his revolver and mortally wounded the suspected burglar.

Appellee-respondent, the deceased’s father, filed a 42 U. S. C. § 1983 action in federal court against Hymon, the city of Memphis, and other defendants, for asserted violations of Garner’s constitutional rights. The District Court for the Western District of Tennessee held that Officer Hymon’s actions were justified by a Tennessee statute that authorizes a police officer to “use all the necessary means to effect the arrest,” if “after notice of the intention to arrest the defendant, he either flee or forcibly resist.” Tenn. Code Ann. §40-7-108 (1982). As construed by the Tennessee courts, this statute allows the use of deadly force only if a police officer has probable cause to believe that a person has committed a felony, the officer warns the person that he intends to arrest him, and the officer reasonably believes that no means less than such force will prevent the escape. See, e. g., Johnson v. State, 173 Tenn. 134, 114 S. W. 2d 819 *25(1938). The District Court held that the Tennessee statute is constitutional and that Hymon’s actions as authorized by that statute did not violate Garner’s constitutional rights. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed on the grounds that the Tennessee statute “authorizing the killing of an unarmed, nonviolent fleeing felon by police in order to prevent escape” violates the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 710 F. 2d 240, 244 (1983).

The Court affirms on the ground that application of the Tennessee statute to authorize Officer Hymon’s use of deadly force constituted an unreasonable seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The precise issue before the Court deserves emphasis, because both the decision below and the majority obscure what must be decided in this case. The issue is not the constitutional validity of the Tennessee statute on its face or as applied to some hypothetical set of facts. Instead, the issue is whether the use of deadly force by Officer Hymon under the circumstances of this case violated Garner’s constitutional rights. Thus, the majority’s assertion that a police officer who has probable cause to seize a suspect “may not always do so by killing him,” ante, at 9, is unexceptionable but also of little relevance to the question presented here. The same is true of the rhetorically stirring statement that “[t]he use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable.” Ante, at 11. The question we must address is whether the Constitution allows the use of such force to apprehend a suspect who resists arrest by attempting to flee the scene of a nighttime burglary of a residence.

II

For purposes of Fourth Amendment analysis, I agree with the Court that Officer Hymon “seized” Garner by shooting him. Whether that seizure was reasonable and therefore permitted by the Fourth Amendment requires a careful bal*26ancing of the important public interest in crime prevention and detection and the nature and quality of the intrusion upon legitimate interests of the individual. United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 703 (1983). In striking this balance here, it is crucial to acknowledge that police use of deadly force to apprehend a fleeing criminal suspect falls within the “rubric of police conduct . . . necessarily [involving] swift action predicated upon the on-the-spot observations of the officer on the beat.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 20 (1968). The clarity of hindsight cannot provide the standard for judging the reasonableness of police decisions made in uncertain and often dangerous circumstances. Moreover, I am far more reluctant than is the Court to conclude that the Fourth Amendment proscribes a police practice that was accepted at the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights and has continued to receive the support of many state legislatures. Although the Court has recognized that the requirements of the Fourth Amendment must respond to the reality of social and technological change, fidelity to the notion of constitutional— as opposed to purely judicial — limits on governmental action requires us to impose a heavy burden on those who claim that practices accepted when the Fourth Amendment was adopted are now constitutionally impermissible. See, e. g., United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 416-421 (1976); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149-153 (1925). Cf. United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U. S. 579, 585 (1983) (noting “impressive historical pedigree” of statute challenged under Fourth Amendment).

The public interest involved in the use of deadly force as a last resort to apprehend a fleeing burglary suspect relates primarily to the serious nature of the crime. Household burglaries not only represent the illegal entry into a person’s home, but also “pos[e] real risk of serious harm to others.” Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 315-316 (1983) (Burger, C. J., dissenting). According to recent Department of Justice statistics, “[t]hree-fifths of all rapes in the home, *27three-fifths of all home robberies, and about a third of home aggravated and simple assaults are committed by burglars.” Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, Household Burglary 1 (January 1985). During the period 1973-1982, 2.8 million such violent crimes were committed in the course of burglaries. Ibid. Victims of a forcible intrusion into their home by a nighttime prowler will find little consolation in the majority’s confident assertion that “burglaries only rarely involve physical violence.” Ante, at 21. Moreover, even if a particular burglary, when viewed in retrospect, does not involve physical harm to others, the “harsh potentialities for violence” inherent in the forced entry into a home preclude characterization of the crime as “innocuous, inconsequential, minor, or ‘nonviolent.’” Solem v. Helm, supra, at 316 (Burger, C. J., dissenting). See also Restatement of Torts §131, Comment g (1934) (burglary is among felonies that normally cause or threaten death or serious bodily harm); R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 1110 (3d ed. 1982) (burglary is dangerous felony that creates unreasonable risk of great personal harm).

Because burglary is a serious and dangerous felony, the public interest in the prevention and detection of the crime is of compelling importance. Where a police officer has probable cause to arrest a suspected burglar, the use of deadly force as a last resort might well be the only means of apprehending the suspect. With respect to a particular burglary, subsequent investigation simply cannot represent a substitute for immediate apprehension of the criminal suspect at the scene. See President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society 97 (1967). Indeed, the Captain of the Memphis Police Department testified that in his city, if apprehension is not immediate, it is likely that the suspect will not be caught. App. in No. 81-5605 (CA6), p. 334. Although some law enforcement agencies may choose to assume the risk that a criminal will remain at large, the *28Tennessee statute reflects a legislative determination that the use of deadly force in prescribed circumstances will serve generally to protect the public. Such statutes assist the police in apprehending suspected perpetrators of serious crimes and provide notice that a lawful police order to stop and submit to arrest may not be ignored with impunity. See, e. g., Wiley v. Memphis Police Department, 548 F. 2d 1247, 1252-1253 (CA6), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 822 (1977); Jones v. Marshall, 528 F. 2d 132, 142 (CA2 1975).

The Court unconvincingly dismisses the general deterrence effects by stating that “the presently available evidence does not support [the] thesis” that the threat of force discourages escape and that “there is a substantial basis for doubting that the use of such force is an essential attribute to the arrest power in all felony cases.” Ante, at 10, 11. There is no question that the effectiveness of police use of deadly force is arguable and that many States or individual police departments have decided not to authorize it in circumstances similar to those presented here. But it should go without saying that the effectiveness or popularity of a particular police practice does not determine its constitutionality. Cf. Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U. S. 447, 464 (1984) (“The Eighth Amendment is not violated every time a State reaches a conclusion different from a majority of its sisters over how best to administer its criminal laws”). Moreover, the fact that police conduct pursuant to a state statute is challenged on constitutional grounds does not impose a burden on the State to produce social science statistics or to dispel any possible doubts about the necessity of the conduct. This observation, I believe, has particular force where the challenged practice both predates enactment of the Bill of Rights and continues to be accepted by a substantial number of the States.

Against the strong public interests justifying the conduct at issue here must be weighed the individual interests implicated in the use of deadly force by police officers. The *29majority declares that “[t]he suspect’s fundamental interest in his own life need not be elaborated upon.” Ante, at 9. This blithe assertion hardly provides an adequate substitute for the majority’s failure to acknowledge the distinctive manner in which the suspect’s interest in his life is even exposed to risk. For purposes of this case, we must recall that the police officer, in the course of investigating a nighttime burglary, had reasonable cause to arrest the suspect and ordered him to halt. The officer’s use of force resulted because the suspected burglar refused to heed this command and the officer reasonably believed that there was no means short of firing his weapon to apprehend the suspect. Without questioning the importance of a person’s interest in his life, I do not think this interest encompasses a right to flee unimpeded from the scene of a burglary. Cf. Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 617, n. 14 (1980) (White, J., dissenting) (“[T]he policeman’s hands should not be tied merely because of the possibility that the suspect will fail to cooperate with legitimate actions by law enforcement personnel”). The legitimate interests of the suspect in these circumstances are adequately accommodated by the Tennessee statute: to avoid the use of deadly force and the consequent risk to his life, the suspect need merely obey the valid order to halt.

A proper balancing of the interests involved suggests that use of deadly force as a last resort to apprehend a criminal suspect fleeing from the scene of a nighttime burglary is not unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Admittedly, the events giving rise to this case are in retrospect deeply regrettable. No one can view the death of an unarmed and apparently nonviolent 15-year-old without sorrow, much less disapproval. Nonetheless, the reasonableness of Officer Hymon’s conduct for purposes of the Fourth Amendment cannot be evaluated by what later appears to have been a preferable course of police action. The officer pursued a suspect in the darkened backyard of a house that from all indications had just been burglarized. The *30police officer was not certain whether the suspect was alone or unarmed; nor did he know what had transpired inside the house. He ordered the suspect to halt, and when the suspect refused to obey and attempted to flee into the night, the officer fired his weapon to prevent escape. The reasonableness of this action for purposes of the Fourth Amendment is not determined by the unfortunate nature of this particular case; instead, the question is whether it is constitutionally impermissible for police officers, as a last resort, to shoot a burglary suspect fleeing the scene of the crime.

Because I reject the Fourth Amendment reasoning of the majority and the Court of Appeals, I briefly note that no other constitutional provision supports the decision below. In addition to his Fourth Amendment claim, appellee-respondent also alleged violations of due process, the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury, and the Eighth Amendment proscription of cruel and unusual punishment. These arguments were rejected by the District Court and, except for the due process claim, not addressed by the Court of Appeals. With respect to due process, the Court of Appeals reasoned that statutes affecting the fundamental interest in life must be “narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake.” 710 F. 2d, at 245. The Court of Appeals concluded that a statute allowing police use of deadly force is narrowly drawn and therefore constitutional only if the use of such force is limited to situations in which the suspect poses an immediate threat to others. Id., at 246-247. Whatever the validity of Tennessee’s statute in other contexts, I cannot agree that its application in this case resulted in a deprivation “without due process of law.” Cf. Baker v. McCollan, 443 U. S. 137, 144-145 (1979). Nor do I believe that a criminal suspect who is shot while trying to avoid apprehension has a cognizable claim of a deprivation of his Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. See Cunningham v. Ellington, 323 F. Supp. 1072, 1075-1076 (WD Tenn. 1971) (three-judge court). Finally, because there is no indication that the use *31of deadly force was intended to punish rather than to capture the suspect, there is no valid claim under the Eighth Amendment. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 538-539 (1979). Accordingly, I conclude that the District Court properly entered judgment against appellee-respondent, and I would reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

III

Even if I agreed that the Fourth Amendment was violated under the circumstances of this case, I would be unable to join the Court’s opinion. The Court holds that deadly force may be used only if the suspect “threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm.” Ante, at 11. The Court ignores the more general implications of its reasoning. Relying on the Fourth Amendment, the majority asserts that it is constitutionally unreasonable to use deadly force against fleeing criminal suspects who do not appear to pose a threat of serious physical harm to others. Ibid. By declining to limit its holding to the use of firearms, the Court unnecessarily implies that the Fourth Amendment constrains the use of any police practice that is potentially lethal, no matter how remote the risk. Cf. Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95 (1983).

Although it is unclear from the language of the opinion, I assume that the majority intends the word “use” to include only those circumstances in which the suspect is actually apprehended. Absent apprehension of the suspect, there is no “seizure” for Fourth Amendment purposes. I doubt that the Court intends to allow criminal suspects who successfully escape to return later with §1983 claims against officers who used, albeit unsuccessfully, deadly force in their futile attempt to capture the fleeing suspect. The Court’s opinion, despite its broad language, actually decides only that the *32shooting of a fleeing burglary suspect who was in fact neither armed nor dangerous can support a § 1983 action.

The Court’s silence on critical factors in the decision to use deadly force simply invites second-guessing of difficult police decisions that must be made quickly in the most trying of circumstances. Cf. Payton v. New York, 445 U. S., at 619 (White, J., dissenting). Police are given no guidance for determining which objects, among an array of potentially lethal weapons ranging from guns to knives to baseball bats to rope, will justify the use of deadly force. The Court also declines to outline the additional factors necessary to provide “probable cause” for believing that a suspect “poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury,” ante, at 3, when the officer has probable cause to arrest and the suspect refuses to obey an order to halt. But even if it were appropriate in this case to limit the use of deadly force to that ambiguous class of suspects, I believe the class should include nighttime residential burglars who resist arrest by attempting to flee the scene of the crime. We can expect an escalating volume of litigation as the lower courts struggle to determine if a police officer’s split-second decision to shoot was justified by the danger posed by a particular object and other facts related to the crime. Thus, the majority opinion portends a burgeoning area of Fourth Amendment doctrine concerning the circumstances in which police officers can reasonably employ deadly force.

IV

The Court’s opinion sweeps broadly to adopt an entirely new standard for the constitutionality of the use of deadly force to apprehend fleeing felons. Thus, the Court “lightly brushe[s] aside,” Payton v. New York, supra, at 600, a longstanding police practice that predates the Fourth Amendment and continues to receive the approval of nearly half of the state legislatures. I cannot accept the majority’s creation of a constitutional right to flight for burglary sus*33pects seeking to avoid capture at the scene of the crime. Whatever the constitutional limits on police use of deadly force in order to apprehend a fleeing felon, I do not believe they are exceeded in a case in which a police officer has probable cause to arrest a suspect at the scene of a residential burglary, orders the suspect to halt, and then fires his weapon as a last resort to prevent the suspect’s escape into the night. I respectfully dissent.

Mr. Justice Powell

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case raises questions as to the United States Border Patrol’s authority to stop automobiles in areas near the Mexican border. It differs from our decision in Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266 (1973), in that the Border Patrol does not claim authority to search cars, but only to question the occupants about their citizenship and immigration status.

I

As part of its regular traffic-checking operations in southern California, the Border Patrol operates a fixed checkpoint on Interstate Highway 5 south of San Clemente. On the evening of March 11, 1973, the checkpoint was closed because of inclement weather, but two officers were observing northbound traffic from a patrol *875car parked at the side of the highway. The road was dark, and they were using the patrol car’s headlights to illuminate passing cars. They pursued respondent’s car and stopped it, saying later that their only reason for doing so was that its three occupants appeared to be of Mexican descent. The officers questioned respondent and his two passengers about their citizenship and learned that the passengers were aliens who had entered the country illegally. All three were then arrested, and respondent was charged with two counts of knowingly transporting illegal immigrants, a violation of § 274 (a) (2) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 228, 8 U. S. C. § 1324 (a)(2). At trial respondent moved to suppress the testimony of and about the two passengers, claiming that this evidence was the fruit of an illegal seizure. The trial court denied the motion, the aliens testified at trial, and respondent was convicted on both counts.

Respondent’s appeal was pending in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit when we announced our decision in Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, supra, holding that the Fourth Amendment prohibits the use of roving patrols to search vehicles, without a warrant or probable cause, at points removed from the border and its functional equivalents. The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, held that the stop in this case more closely resembled a roving-patrol stop than a stop at a traffic checkpoint, and applied the principles of Almeida-Sanchez. 1 *876The court held that the Fourth Amendment, as interpreted in Almeida-Sanchez, forbids stopping a vehicle, even for the limited purpose of questioning its occupants, unless the officers have a “founded suspicion” that the occupants are aliens illegally in the country. The court refused to find that Mexican ancestry alone supported such a “founded suspicion” and held that respondent’s motion to suppress should have been granted.2 499 F. 2d 1109 (1974). We granted certiorari and set the case for oral argument with No. 73-2050, United States v. Ortiz, post, p. 891, and No. 73-6848, Bowen v. United States, post, p. 916. 419 U. S. 824 (1974).

The Government does not challenge the Court of Appeals’ factual conclusion that the stop of respondent’s car was a roving-patrol stop rather than a checkpoint stop. Brief for United States 8. Nor does it challenge the retroactive application of Almeida-Sanchez, supra, Brief for United States 9, or contend that the San Clemente checkpoint is the functional equivalent of the border. The only issue presented for decision is whether a roving patrol may stop a vehicle in an area near the border and question its occupants when the only ground for suspicion is that the occupants appear to be of Mexican ancestry. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.

II

The Government claims two sources of statutory au*877thority for stopping cars without warrants in the border areas. Section 287 (a)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1357 (a)(1), authorizes any officer or employee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) without a warrant, “to interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States.” There is no geographical limitation on this authority. The Government contends that, at least in the areas adjacent to the Mexican border, a person’s apparent Mexican ancestry alone justifies belief that he or she is an alien and satisfies the requirement of this statute. Section 287 (a)(3) of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1357 (a)(3), authorizes agents, without a warrant,

“within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States, to board and search for aliens any vessel within the territorial waters of the United States and any railway car, aircraft, conveyance, or vehicle . . . .”

Under current regulations, this authority may be exercised anywhere within 100 miles of the border. 8 CFR § 287.1 (a) (1975). The Border Patrol interprets the statute as granting authority to stop moving vehicles and question the occupants about their citizenship, even when its officers have no reason to believe that the occupants are aliens or that other aliens may be concealed in the vehicle.3 But “no Act of Congress can authorize a violation of the Constitution,” AImeida-Sanchez, supra, at 272, *878and we must decide whether the Fourth Amendment allows such random vehicle stops in the border areas.

Ill

The Fourth Amendment applies to all seizures of the person, including seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest. Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 16-19 (1968). “[Wjhenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has 'seized’ that person,” id., at 16, and the Fourth Amendment requires that the seizure be “reasonable.” As with other categories of police action subject to Fourth Amendment constraints, the reasonableness of such seizures depends on a balance between the public interest and the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers. Id., at 20-21; Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 536-537 (1967).

The Government makes a convincing demonstration that the public interest demands effective measures to prevent the illegal entry of aliens at the Mexican border. Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the United States vary widely. A conservative estimate in 1972 produced a figure of about one million, but the INS now suggests there may be as many as 10 or 12 million aliens illegally in the country.4 Whatever the number, these aliens create significant economic and social problems, competing with citizens and legal resident *879aliens for jobs, and generating extra demand for social services. The aliens themselves are vulnerable to exploitation because they cannot complain of substandard working conditions without risking deportation. See generally Hearings on Illegal Aliens before Subcommittee No. 1 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 92d Cong., 1st and 2d Sess., ser. 13, pts. 1-5 (1971-1972).

The Government has estimated that 85% of the aliens illegally in the country are from Mexico. United States v. Baca, 368 F. Supp. 398, 402 (SD Cal. 1973).5 The Mexican border is almost 2,000 miles long, and even a vastly reinforced Border Patrol would find it impossible to prevent illegal border crossings. Many aliens cross the Mexican border on foot, miles away from patrolled areas, and then purchase transportation from the border area to inland cities, where they find jobs and elude the immigration authorities. Others gain entry on valid temporary border-crossing permits, but then violate the conditions of their entry. Most of these aliens leave the border area in private vehicles, often assisted by professional “alien smugglers.” The Border Patrol’s traffic-checking operations are designed to prevent this inland movement. They succeed in apprehending some illegal entrants and smugglers, and they deter the movement of others by threatening apprehension and increasing the cost of illegal transportation.

Against this valid public interest we must weigh the interference with individual liberty that results when an officer stops an automobile and questions its occupants. *880The intrusion is modest. The Government tells us that a stop by a roving patrol “usually consumes no more than a minute.” Brief for United States 25. There is no search of the vehicle or its occupants, and the visual inspection is limited to those parts of the vehicle that can be seen by anyone standing alongside.6 According to the Government, “[a] 11 that is required of the vehicle’s occupants is a response to a brief question or two and possibly the production of a document evidencing a right to be in the United States.” Ibid.

Because of the limited nature of the intrusion, stops of this sort may be justified on facts that do not amount to the probable cause required for an arrest. In Terry v. Ohio, supra, the Court declined expressly to decide whether facts not amounting to probable cause could justify an “investigative 'seizure’ ” short of an arrest, 392 U. S., at 19 n. 16, but it approved a limited search — a pat-down for weapons — for the protection of an officer investigating suspicious behavior of persons he reasonably believed to be armed and dangerous. The Court approved such a search on facts that did not constitute probable cause to believe the suspects guilty of a crime, requiring only that “the police officer ... be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant” a belief that his safety or that of others is in danger. Id., at 21; see id., at 27.

We elaborated on Terry in Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972), holding that a policeman was justified *881in approaching the respondent to investigate a tip that he was carrying narcotics and a gun.

“The Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape. On the contrary, Terry recognizes that it may be the essence of good police work to adopt an intermediate response. ... A brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time.” Id,., at 145-146.

These cases together establish that in appropriate circumstances the Fourth Amendment allows a properly limited “search” or “seizure” on facts that do not constitute probable cause to arrest or to search for contraband or evidence of crime. In both Terry and Adams v. Williams the investigating officers had reasonable grounds to believe that the suspects were armed and that they might be dangerous. The limited searches and seizures in those cases were a valid method of protecting the public and preventing crime. In this ease as well, because of the importance of the governmental interest at stake, the minimal intrusion of a brief stop, and the absence of practical alternatives for policing the border, we hold that when an officer’s observations lead him reasonably to suspect that a particular vehicle may contain aliens who are illegally in the country, he may stop the car briefly and investigate the circumstances that provoke suspicion. As in Terry, the stop and inquiry must be “reasonably related in scope to the justification for their initiation.” 392 U. S., at 29. The officer may question the driver and passengers about their citizenship and *882immigration status, and he may ask them to explain suspicious circumstances, but any further detention or search must be based on consent or probable cause.

We are unwilling to let the Border Patrol dispense entirely with the requirement that officers must have a reasonable suspicion to justify roving-patrol stops.7 In the context of border area stops, the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth Amendment demands something more than the broad and unlimited discretion sought by the Government. Roads near the border carry not only aliens seeking to enter the country illegally, but a large volume of legitimate traffic as well. San Diego, with a metropolitan population of 1.4 million, is located on the border. Texas has two fairly large metropolitan areas directly on the border: El Paso, with a population of 360,000, and the Brownsville-McAllen area, with a combined population of 320,000. We are confident that substantially all of the traffic in these cities is lawful and that relatively few of their residents have any connection with the illegal entry and transportation of aliens. To approve roving-patrol stops of all vehicles in the border area, without any suspicion that a particular vehicle is carrying illegal immigrants, would subject the residents of these and other areas to potentially unlimited interference with their use of the highways, solely at the discretion of Border Patrol officers. The only formal limitation on that discretion appears to be the administrative regulation defining the term “reasonable distance” in § 287 (a) (3) to mean within 100 *883air miles from the border. 8 CFR §287.1 (a) (1975). Thus, if we approved the Government’s position in this case, Border Patrol officers could stop motorists at random for questioning, day or night, anywhere within 100 air miles of the 2,000-mile border, on a city street, a busy highway, or a desert road, without any reason to suspect that they have violated any law.

We are not convinced that the legitimate needs of law enforcement require this degree of interference with lawful traffic. As we discuss in Part IV, infra, the nature of illegal alien traffic and the characteristics of smuggling operations tend to generate articulable grounds for identifying violators. Consequently, a requirement of reasonable suspicion for stops allows the Government adequate means of guarding the public interest and also protects residents of the border areas from indiscriminate official interference. Under the circumstances, and even though the intrusion incident to a stop is modest, we conclude that it is not “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment to make such stops on a random basis.8

The Government also contends that the public interest in enforcing conditions on legal alien entry justifies stopping persons who may be aliens for questioning about their citizenship and immigration status. Although we *884may assume for purposes of this case that the broad congressional power over immigration, see Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 765-767 (1972), authorizes Congress to admit aliens on condition that they will submit to reasonable questioning about their right to be and remain in the country, this power cannot diminish the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens who may be mistaken for aliens. For the same reasons that the Fourth Amendment forbids stopping vehicles at random to inquire if they are carrying aliens who are illegally in the country, it also forbids stopping or detaining persons for questioning about their citizenship on less than a reasonable suspicion that they may be aliens.

IV

The effect of our decision is to limit exercise of the authority granted by both § 287 (a)(1) and § 287 (a) (3). Except at the border and its functional equivalents, officers on roving patrol may stop vehicles only if they are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion that the vehicles contain aliens who may be illegally in the country.9

Any number of factors may be taken into account in deciding whether there is reasonable suspicion to stop a car in the border area. Officers may consider the characteristics of the area in which they encounter a vehicle. Its proximity to the border, the usual pat*885terns of traffic on the particular road, and previous experience with alien traffic are all relevant. See Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 159-161 (1925); United States v. Jaime-Barrios, 494 F. 2d 455 (CA9), cert. denied, 417 U. S. 972 (1974).10 They also may consider information about recent illegal border crossings in the area. The driver’s behavior may be relevant, as erratic driving or obvious attempts to evade officers can support a reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Larios-Montes, 500 F. 2d 941 (CA9 1974); Duprez v. United States, 435 F. 2d 1276 (CA9 1970). Aspects of the vehicle itself may justify suspicion. For instance, officers say that certain station wagons, with large compartments for fold-down seats or spare tires, are frequently used for transporting concealed aliens. See United States v. Bugarin-Casas, 484 F. 2d 853 (CA9 1973), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 1136 (1974); United States v. Wright, 476 F. 2d 1027 (CA5 1973). The vehicle may appear to be heavily loaded, it may have an extraordinary number of passengers, or the officers may observe persons trying to hide. See United States v. Larios-Montes, supra. The Government also points out that trained officers can recognize the characteristic appearance of persons who live in Mexico, relying on such factors as the mode of dress and haircut. Reply Brief for United States 12-13, in United States v. Ortiz, post, p. 891. In all situations the officer is entitled to assess the facts in light of his experience in detecting illegal entry and smuggling. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S., at 27.

In this case the officers relied on a single factor to justify stopping respondent’s car: the apparent Mexican an*886cestry of the occupants.11 We cannot conclude that this furnished reasonable grounds to believe that the three occupants were aliens. At best the officers had only a fleeting glimpse of the persons in the moving car, illuminated by headlights. Even if they saw enough to think that the occupants were of Mexican descent, this factor alone would justify neither a reasonable belief that they were aliens, nor a reasonable belief that the car concealed other aliens who were illegally in the country. Large numbers of native-born and naturalized citizens have the physical characteristics identified with Mexican ancestry, and even in the border area a relatively small proportion of them are aliens.12 The likelihood that any given *887person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor, but standing alone it does not justify stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

[For opinion of The Chief Justice concurring in the judgment, see post, p. 899.]

[For opinion of Mr. Justice White concurring in the judgment, see post, p. 914.]

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,

concurring.

I join in the opinion of the Court. I think it quite important to point out, however, that that opinion, which is joined by a somewhat different majority than that which comprised the Almeida-Sanchez Court, is both by its terms and by its reasoning concerned only with the type of stop involved in this case. I think that just as travelers entering the country may be stopped and searched without probable cause and without founded suspicion, because of “national self protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in, and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in,” Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 154 (1925), a strong case may be made for those charged with the enforcement of laws conditioning the right of vehicular use of a highway to likewise stop motorists using highways in order to determine whether they have met the qualifications prescribed by applicable law for such use. See Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 440-441 (1973); United States v. Biswell, 406 U. S. 311 (1972). I regard these and similar situations, such *888as agricultural inspections and highway roadblocks to apprehend known fugitives, as not in any way constitutionally suspect by reason of today’s decision.

Mr. Justice Douglas,

concurring in the judgment.

I join in the affirmance of the judgment. The stopping of respondent’s automobile solely because its occupants appeared to be of Mexican ancestry was a patent violation of the Fourth Amendment. I cannot agree, however, with the standard the Court adopts to measure the lawfulness of the officers’ action. The Court extends the “suspicion” test of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), to the stop of a moving automobile. I dissented from the adoption of the suspicion test in Terry, believing it an unjustified weakening of the Fourth Amendment’s protection of citizens from arbitrary interference by the police. I remarked then:

“The infringement on personal liberty of any 'seizure’ of a person can only be 'reasonable’ under the Fourth Amendment if we require the police to possess 'probable cause’ before they seize him. Only that line draws a meaningful distinction between an officer’s mere inkling and the presence of facts within the officer’s personal knowledge which would convince a reasonable man that the person seized has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a particular crime.” Id., at 38.

The fears I voiced in Terry about the weakening of the Fourth Amendment have regrettably been borne out by subsequent events. Hopes that the suspicion test might be employed only in the pursuit of violent crime — a limitation endorsed by some of its proponents* — have now been dashed, as it has been applied *889in narcotics investigations, in apprehension of “illegal” aliens, and indeed has come to be viewed as a legal construct for the regulation of a general investigatory police power. The suspicion test has been warmly embraced by law enforcement forces and vigorously employed in the cause of crime detection. In criminal cases we see those for whom the initial intrusion led to the discovery of some wrongdoing. But the nature of the test permits the police to interfere as well with a multitude of law-abiding citizens, whose only transgression may be a nonconformist appearance or attitude. As one commentator has remarked:

“ ‘Police power exercised without probable cause is arbitrary. To say that the police may accost citizens at their whim and may detain them upon reasonable suspicion is to say, in reality, that the police may both accost and detain citizens at their whim.1 ” Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn. L. Rev. 349, 395 (1974).

The uses to which the suspicion test has been put are illustrated in some of the cases cited in the Court’s opinion. In United States v. Wright, 476 F. 2d 1027 (CA5 1973), for example, immigration officers stopped a station wagon near the border because there was a spare tire in the back seat. The court held that the officers reasonably suspected that the spare wheel well had been freed in order to facilitate the concealment of aliens. In United States v. Bugarin-Casas, 484 F. 2d 853 (CA9 1973), the Border Patrol officers encountered a man driving alone in a station wagon which was “riding low”; stopping the car was held reasonable because the officers suspected that aliens might have been hidden beneath the floorboards. The vacationer whose car is weighted down with luggage will find no comfort in these decisions; nor will the many law-abiding citi*890zens who drive older vehicles that ride low because their suspension systems are old or in disrepair. The suspicion test has indeed brought a state of affairs where the police may stop citizens on the highway on the flimsiest of ■justifications.

The Court does, to be sure, disclaim approval of the particular decisions it cites applying the suspicion test. But by specifying factors to be considered without attempting to explain what combination is necessary to satisfy the test, the Court may actually induce the police to push its language beyond intended limits and to advance as a justification any of the enumerated factors even where its probative significance is negligible.

Ultimately the degree to which the suspicion test actually restrains the police will depend more upon what the Court does henceforth than upon what it says today. If my Brethren mean to give the suspicion test a new bite, I applaud the intention. But in view of the developments since the test was launched in Terry, I am not optimistic. This is the first decision to invalidate a stop on the basis of the suspicion standard. In fact, since Terry we have granted review of a case applying the test only once, in Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972), where the Court found the standard satisfied by the tip from an informant whose credibility was not established and whose information was not shown to be based upon personal knowledge. If in the future the suspicion test is to provide any meaningful restraint of the police, its force must come from vigorous review of its applications, and not alone from the qualifying language of today’s opinion. For now, I remain unconvinced that the suspicion test offers significant protection of the “comprehensive right of personal liberty in the face of governmental intrusion,” Lopez v. United States, 373 U. S. 427, 455 (1963) (dissenting opinion), that is embodied in the Fourth Amendment.